“We have been vindicated in our claim that Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and his faction are not serious about their purported search for the return of peace in our party.
Just few hours after last Sunday’s meeting between the progressive Governors and the President, Tukur’s faction once more showed its disdain for peace by unilaterally setting up a Caretaker Committee to run the affairs of our Kano chapter. This was done without recourse to either the Leader of the party in Kano State, Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, or other stakeholders of the party from Kano.
“This illegality is a clear violation of our party’s constitution and was hurriedly done just to spite Governor Kwankwaso, the Party Leader in the State. We hereby urge our people in Kano State to ignore this illegality as we have set in motion the machinery to organise a proper election as stipulated by our party’s constitution.
“We are still at a loss why Tukur and his cohorts do not want peace to reign in PDP but no matter the odds we are very determined to ensure that peace is restored to our party with the prayers of Nigerians” These were the reactions of Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, the factional National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after last Monday’s inauguration of Kano State PDP Caretaker Committee at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja by Alhaji Tukur.
The Chairman and Secretary of the 11-man Caretaker Committee, whose other nine members will be announced later, are Hassan Kafayos and Andrew Musa respectively.
They were immediately sworn-in by the party’s National Legal Adviser, Victor Kwom while Abubakar Mustapha, the National Organising Secretary of the PDP said other members of the committee would be appointed later in Kano.
Tukur, while inaugurating the committee, explained that the interim exco would serve pending the conduct of a congress to elect officials to run the affairs of the party in the State. Justifying the dissolution of the former exco led by Alhaji Adamu Aliyu Sumaila, the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, said the tenure of the dissolved exco had expired on August 15 and that there was need for a caretaker committee.
The PDP National Chairman, who enjoined them to work with unity of purpose, said the party would consult widely with all the interest groups in the Kano before naming the other nine members of the committee.
He implored the interim exco to take cognizance of the strong opposition in Kano, pointing out that they should not be underrated. He also tasked the committee members to ensure that they address grievances among members in Kano and that the party must win the governorship election in the State in 2015. He said the caretaker committee was set up in accordance to the rules and provisions of PDP Constitution.
On whether the state Governor Kwankwaso was consulted on the setting up of the caretaker committee, the PDP National Publicity Secretary Chief Olisa Metuh said that the governor had been contacted.
“The governor is one of our best performing governors and so, we have no reason to exclude him from the party. But in the same way, we cannot exclude other persons, too,” Metuh said. However, pundits see the constitution of caretaker committee in Kano State as part of efforts to take over the control of party structure from Kwankwaso, who is considered as one of the stumbling blocks to the purported 2015 ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Sunday Trust gathered that with this development, the party structure may be put under the control of the ousted Minster of National Planning, Dr Shamsudeen Usman and Ambassador Aminu Wali to weaken the influence of Governor Kwankwaso and his loyalists in Kwankwasiyya Movement.
This suspicion was further fueled by the return of Mohammed Abacha, son of former Head of State, General Sani Abacha, to the PDP after leaving the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2010 where he failed in his attempt to contest for Kano governorship position in the last general elections.
Abacha was warmly received by the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) at the party’s national secretariat the day the caretaker committee was inaugurated for the Kano State chapter of the party in Abuja. While speaking on the development, Mohammed said that his return was informed by his realisation that the concept of internal democracy was practised better in the PDP than in any other parties.
He said that he had decided to forget about his political experience in the defunct CPC where he was denied the governorship ticket in 2011. On reports that he was being used to take over the party leadership in the State from Governor Kwankwaso, Mohammed said: “Nobody is wresting power from anybody because power belongs to God. We will do the little we can and God will decide the rest.”
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Metuh, at a press conference earlier, explained that Mohammed’s return to the party was due to the reconciliatory work carried out in the last few months. But in another twist to the development, a former aide on special duties to Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Ahmed Shua’ibu Gara, has dismissed the caretaker committee set up by the national secretariat of the PDP to run the affairs of the party in Kano as dead on arrival.
Speaking during a press briefing at Kano state NUJ secretariat, Gara stated that the party’s constitution does not recognize a caretaker arrangement.
He said the Kano chapter of PDP has shown so much responsibility and uncommon respect to the constitution of the party by formally notifying the national party leadership on 26th July 2013 through a letter with reference number KN/PDP/ADM/08/13 that the tenure of the state party executives is due to expire on 27th August, 2013.
He said the national body of the party responded in a letter dated 22nd August 2013 attaching a timetable for the conduct of a state congress and in it, the zonal offices of the party was directed to oversee the affairs of the party in the State.
“As I address you today, there is no communication or whatsoever from the party superseding those quoted above, only for us to watch on television that a purported caretaker committee is being sworn-in,” he lamented.
As the political intrigues between the new PDP led by Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje and the mainstream PDP led by Alhaji Tukur continue, only time will tell if the plots to humble Kwankwaso in Kano will succeed.
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