PDP logo: Journalist demands N50m Compensation

The reporter, who gave the Peoples Demo­cratic Party (PDP) the umbrella as its sym­bol, Gboyega Amobonye, has demanded a copyright fee of N50million from the party, payable from its recent wind­fall of N3billion collected from political office seekers.

In a press statement, Gboye­ga Amobonye congratulated the party for realising the money but urged its leadership to use the opportunity to compensate him for his intellectual prop­erty which has been working wonders since its trial with the local government elections of December 5, 1998, as well as the governorship and state leg­islature elections of January 9, 1999, all of which were swept by the party.

He recalled that the first chairman of the PDP, the late Chief Solomon Lar, had, shortly after the three elections, commended him for providing the winning symbol, explaining that, “apart from being a shel­ter, an umbrella is a symbol of authority in the North.”

The veteran journalist, who had been calling for compen­sation by the party since 1998, said he had, in an open letter to President Goodluck Jonathan, published by The Sun on Sep­tember 15, 2014 appealed to  him to intervene as the leader of the PDP and father of the na­tion. Amobonye, a former Po­litical Editor with the defunct Concord Press Ltd, stated that he had on April 14, 2014, writ­ten a similar letter to the incum­bent National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu. He recalled an interview with a former Senate President, the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, published by Thisday on December 15, 2002 where he disclosed that the sym­bol of umbrella was given to the PDP by him (Amobonye).

Late Okadigbo was quoted to have said, “… the name, PDP, was suggested by me at the MU­SON Centre in Lagos, including the symbol. There was a certain Yoruba guy in the Concord, who wrote me a letter, which has this symbol of umbrella; I thought it was interesting, so, I read it out and it was adopted.”