President Goodluck Jonathan has drawn a battle line with the governors
who staged a walkout on him and announced the formation of a faction
penultimate Saturday, a day the party was holding its special
convention.
A pro-Jonathan governor confided in LEADERSHIP that the president had
resolved not to acquiesce to any of the demands the seven governors
presented to the PDP Elders’ Committee led by former president Olusegun
Obasanjo on Friday.
At the meeting summoned by the former president which was attended by
former military president Ibrahim Babangida, chairman of the party’s
Board of Trustees (BoT) Tony Anenih, senators Ahmadu Ali and Barnabas
Gemade (both former national chairman of the PDP), the governors led by
their factional chairman, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, insisted on the following
as the immediate terms for peace: immediate resignation of PDP national
chairman Bamanga Tukur, conduct of a fresh national convention, a
commitment from President Jonathan that he would not run for a second
term in 2015, recognition of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State as
chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF),
lifting of the Rivers governor’s suspension, reinstatement of the
Rivers and Adamawa state chapters of the PDP, a directive by the
president to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to stop
investigating some of the governors in the new PDP, their officials and
certain leaders in the fold.
According to the governor, President Jonathan had received early
briefings from Anenih and the Bayelsa State governor, Henry Seriake
Dickson, on his arrival from Kenya on Saturday.
While Anenih was said to have briefed the president in the evening of
Saturday, Governor Dickson was the president’s guest in the early hours
of Sunday to present what the source described as “preliminary report”
by the governors in the president’s camp. The Bayelsa governor was said
to have also used the meeting with the president to request a meeting
with the pro-Jonathan governors.
As at the time of this report, the president was in a dinner with
members of the PDP BoT, stakeholders and other loyalists after his
meeting with the governors loyal to him. The governor said: “There is no
way the president can allow such impunity to continue in the party all
in the name of unity and cohesion; none of these governors, I am sure,
would have tried this nonsense under Chief Obasanjo; and maybe because
the man had always presented a meek mien, they think he is weak and does
not know what to do at the right time.
“I know he is waiting for the report of the Elders’ Committee, maybe on
Monday or Tuesday, but I can tell you that the issues raised by the
seven governors are dead on arrival. I can beat my chest on this because
they have crossed the lines of respect, and disrespect has crept in.
“From all indications, Mr President has called their bluff because, in
the first place, most of the terms for settlement are either premature
or irresponsible. How can they say the president should say he would not
run? Is that possible by any circumstance?
The governor further disclosed that the president’s resolve was informed
by the fact that he had held a closed-door meeting with three of the
seven governors at the villa two days to the walkout and the formation
of the new PDP. The president was said to have pleaded with them to
sheathe their swords in the war of attrition that had characterised the
party, he said. It was agreed at the meeting that Governor Amaechi was
to have a one-on-one meeting with the president after the convention
where all issues of discord were to be ironed out.
“The outcome of the walkout and swiftness with which the new PDP was
formed, including the prepared speech by Baraje, meant that the action
of the governors was premeditated, hence agreeing to their terms may be
difficult,” the governor added.
However, it was gathered that President Jonathan has set up three
special committees to deal with the festering PDP crisis. Details of the
membership of the committees are still sketchy as at press time. But it
was gathered that the committees are political, legal and contacts
committees.
G-7 governors will not work with Atiku
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the governors who staged a walkout during
the party’s national convention in Abuja will not work with former
vice-president Atiku Abubakar.
The coordinator of the Northern Emancipation Network, Alhaji Abdulazeez
Sulaiman, said yesterday in Abuja that the seven governors were “all
former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s boys”.
According to him, the former president, who is leading the PDP Elders’
Committee to reconcile the factions, not only made these governors
politically but ensured that they were elected into their respective
offices during his time as president.
Though both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples
Democratic Movement (PDM) have openly invited these governors to join
their parties, Suleiman maintained that the governors would not join PDM
but would rather take instructions from Obasanjo.
“The seven governors that staged a walkout with former Vice-President
Atiku Abubakar are not his political bedfellows. They are all former
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s boys. They will not join the PDM with
Atiku. Wherever Obasanjo asks them to go, they will go,” Suleiman
declared.
The seven governors who staged the walkout penultimate Saturday at the
Eagle Square were: Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu
(Niger), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Abdulfattah (Kwara), Rabiu Kwakwanso
(Kano), Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers).
Suleiman recounted that it was during Obasanjo’s watch as the president
and leader of the PDP that he convinced the governor of Sokoto State to
dump the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the political platform on
which he won the governorship election, to join PDP.
“The governor of Niger State was a permanent secretary at the FCTA when
he was tapped to run in the 2007 general elections; he had to vie for
the PDP ticket, which he won,” Suleiman said. “The governor of Adamawa
State, Murtala Nyako, besides enjoying espirit de corps with the former
president, was literally drafted to fly the PDP flag in 2007. The Kano
state governor was made the minister of defence by Obasanjo in 2003,
which prepared him for the task of successfully vying for the number one
office in Kano in 2007. Ditto for the governor of Jigawa State, Sule
Lamido, who served as the foreign affairs minister under former
President Obasanjo for four years.
“Though the governor of Kwara State may not be a direct beneficiary of
Obasanjo, his political benefactor and his predecessor in office,
Senator Bukola Saraki, is. Saraki served as a special assistant to
Obasanjo during his first term, and he rode on the goodwill to clinch
the governorship of Kwara State in 2003.”
Jonathan free to run in 2015 – Olisah Metuh
Amid the crisis, the party has said that President Jonathan is free to contest the forthcoming 2015 presidential election.
The national publicity secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisah Metuh, who
disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos yesterday, said it is undemocratic
for the party or anybody to stop the president from running.
He said: “I believe personally that their demand is undemocratic; to
start to be talking about someone’s ambition or o give him condition
,like they are saying ‘forgo your ambition or ‘we cannot talk’; that is
undemocratic. It is not fair. You cannot tell the man that you deny him
his constitutional right except there is a pronouncement by the court or
the constitution is against his ambition.
PDP crisis will affect Nigeria – Oyinlola
But the national secretary of the new PDP, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola,
has said that the face-off within the ruling party was capable of
causing setback for the country.
Addressing a crowd of supporters from all the 30 local government areas
and Ife East Area Office at his home town, Okuku, Osun State, Oyinlola
said the PDP has been in the saddle of governance since the return to
democracy, adding that the crisis may rob the nation of the gains of
democracy.
He however expressed hope that the effort of elders of the party like
former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Chief
Tony Anenih to resolve the crisis will yield fruitful dividend.
Oyinlola, who attributed his removal from office as the national
secretary of the party as the genesis of the crisis rocking the party,
accused President Jonathan of taking sides in the process that led to
his removal, adding that all peace meetings called by notable leaders of
the party to resolve the matter were deadlocked.
Those responsible for sealing off of new PDP office should be jailed – APC
Amidst the intrigues within the PDP, the All Progressives Congress (APC)
has said all those behind the sealing off of the secretariat of the new
PDP in Abuja must be immediately identified and jailed for crass
lawlessness and palpable impunity.
“The festering crisis in the PDP is not our business, but when the
crisis leads to repression, disregard for court orders and
constitutional provisions, we cannot keep quiet because those issues
have grave implications for our democracy,” the party said in a
statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by its interim national publicity
secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
It described the sealing off of the new PDP secretariat as a throwback
to the nation’s darkest era, saying it also confirms the fears being
expressed by the opposition that the Jonathan administration will become
increasingly intolerant and repressive with the approach of the 2015
general elections.
There is no doubt that the rump of the ruling PDP which has the ears of
President Jonathan is behind the sealing off of the new PDP secretariat,
in a dangerous defiance of a court order that the parties must maintain
the status quo,” APC stated. “The egregious nature of this action
becomes even clearer when viewed against the lies being peddled by the
old PDP: that the sealing off of the secretariat, which it instigated,
has the imprimatur of the courts. ‘This is why those who are behind the
secretariat’s sealing in Abuja must be punished without delay to serve
as a deterrent. After all, no one is above the law.”
We’ll soon resolve the minor disagreement – Jonathan
President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the crisis rocking the party is a minor issue which will soon be resolved.
Speaking during the party’s post-convention dinner in Abuja yesterday,
the president who spoke in a reconciliatory gesture, said: “What
happened during our recent mini-convention is a minor disagreement and
we will soon solve it with our aggrieved members. We should discuss as
members of the same family.”
Jonathan, who expressed gratitude to party elders and governors for
their effort to resolve the matter, said no party could replace PDP.
We’ll bring everybody on board – Anenih
On his part, the PDP BoT chair, Chief Tony Anenih, said that the party
elders would ensure that genuine reconciliation was put in place to
bring everybody on board.
On the recent division in the party, Anenih described the task ahead as
enormous and said, however, that the party would address the grievances
of members.
According to him, “We will not fire any shot and we will win the war. We
should not recognise opposition in the PDP. We stand for unity,
cohesion and abhor indiscipline.”
Obasanjo, IBB, New PDP Govs Shun Post-convention Dinner
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former military president, Ibrahim
Babangida and the seven governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
who boycotted the party’s special convention penultimate Saturday were
absent at the party’s post-convention dinner last night.
The dinner, which held at the banquet hall of the presidential villa,
however, had over 16 governors of the party in attendance, while about
nine former governors also attended
The governors who were absent were Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Babangida Aliyu
(Niger), Ahmed Fatai (Kwara), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Murtala Nyako
(Adamawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers).
But the presidency said yesterday described those absent at the dinner as those who had chosen to toe the wrong path.
Special adviser to the president on political matters, Ahmed Gulak, who
gave the welcome address, said that more than 90 per cent of Nigerians
were on the side of Jonathan and the PDP.
According to him, “Sixteen governors are here. Those who are not here
are on the wrong path and they had better return before it is late”.
He further said that what happened at the just concluded special
convention was not the result of poor management of the event, but a
premeditated plan to cause confusion in the party. He, however, declared
that the party was surefooted to tackle the problem.
Former minister of information and PDP chieftain Professor Jerry Gana
insisted that the party was always ready to face the challenges
confronting it, even as he added that, while it does not show weakness
of the party, reconciliation was a good option for the moment.
Also in attendance were PDP Board of Trustees chairman, Tony Anenih;
PDP national chairman, Bamanga Tukur; former chairmen of the party,
Ahmadu Ali, Barnabbas Gemade, Vincent Ogbulafor, Okwesilieze Nwodo and
Bello Haliru.
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