Breaking News For PDP, the Crisis Continues

 







Bamanga Tukur

 News on Top the crises in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) are far from over as the two-day meeting to tackle them ended in the wee hours of  Wednesday in a deadlock.

The meeting, summoned and presided over by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and attended by the party’s 23 governors, began on Monday night during which the participants bared their minds on why the crises had been lingering.

The Monday meeting, in which the governors were brutally frank with one another on why the PDP and the NGF were in a tailspin, later adjourned until Tuesday night for further deliberations.

However, when the participants reconvened at 11pm on Tuesday, they failed to reach a consensus on the way forward after four hours of deliberation.

This was because the governors, who have been divided into two camps by the crises, refused to shift grounds while the meeting further polarised them.

On the NGF crisis, the governors stuck to their positions as neither the supporters of Plateau State Governor, Chief Jonah Jang, whose claim to the chairmanship of the forum was that he was the party’s consensus candidate, nor those of Rivers State Governor, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi, who won the NGF election, were ready to concede anything to the other.

Amaechi, in the election, had scored 19 votes to Jang’s 16 to retain his position as the NGF chair.

It was learnt that while Jang was initially willing to step down during the meeting, Amaechi refused to do so.

The NGF chairman, as exclusively reported by THISDAY yesterday, insisted on the sanctity of the mandate given to him by his colleagues.

A source close to the meeting confided in THISDAY that Amaechi was not willing to trade his NGF mandate for peace in PDP because it would amount to a betrayal of the trust of his colleagues who stuck out their necks to vote for him despite the pressure from the presidency.

“The truth of the matter is that Jang has nothing to lose by stepping down; but Amaechi does. If he caves in to pressure from the PDP to step down, he would have jeopardised his political career.

“Unlike Jang who lost in the NGF election, Amaechi won and stepping down would amount to a betrayal,” the source said.

THISDAY gathered that the meeting rather than resolve the crises over which it was convened, ended up deepening the cracks among the governors.

Another source said the governors were intransigent because they came to the meeting with a mindset.

He said:  “The five governors openly identified with the leadership of Amaechi as the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), while others in the Jang camp defended the support for him as the chairman of the governors’ forum.

“From the meeting we had, it seems that none of our colleagues wants to shift grounds. I am among the supporters of Amaechi because he won an election among us the governors to lead us.

“To us, this is seen as part of democracy. An election among 36 equals was conducted and one person got 19 votes and the other got 16. So, on the basis of a simple majority, the person with the highest number won; but some of us refused to accept the outcome of the election.”

The source explained that the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF), Chief Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, leading his group, insisted that the PDP as the political party with the highest number of governors in the NGF had chosen a consensus candidate as the chairman of the governors’ forum and it must remain so.

The source said the pro-Jang governors insisted that they had a paper, where 19 governors appended their signatures that Jang was the PDP candidate for the NGF chair.

He also said attempts were made for Amaechi and Jang to resign, but the Rivers State governor rejected the suggestion, insisting that his election as the chairman of NGF was not negotiable.

“At this point, we knew that there was nothing anyone could do to ask Amaechi to step down. He was supported by the governors of Sokoto, Jigawa, Adamawa and Kano. The Kano governor also said in the meeting that they were not quitting the PDP as some of us were thinking,” the source added.

A governor, who also gave some insight into what transpired at the meeting, said Amaechi rejected entreaties from his colleagues, including Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, and his Kwara State counterpart, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, to step down.

He said: “Our friend (Amaechi) has become paranoid. He feels he has to hold on to the NGF chairmanship as a bargaining chip. Niger and Kwara governors even advised him to step down, but he declined.

“The governors even suggested that he should call for a general meeting of all the governors, during which he will announce his resignation, but he refused.

“Jang was more than willing to step down, but since Ameachi remained obstinate, he decided to hold on to his position of chairman of the NGF faction.”

On what Obasanjo’s comments were as a result of the stalemate that had ensued, the governor said the former president became philosophical by stating the “door had been shut but was still open”.

“It was quite disheartening because we thought this crisis will be resolved. Baba (Obasanjo) told him (Amaechi) he is too clever and arrogant,” he said.

The governor, however, added that some of them felt Obasanjo would not have been able to convince Amaechi to step down given their history.

Until a Supreme Court judgment in October 2007, Obasanjo as sitting president, was alleged to have been instrumental to ensuring Amaechi did not contest the Rivers governorship election in April that year, even though he had won the state primaries for the ticket of the PDP a few months earlier.

THISDAY was told that the meeting also discussed the fate of the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, but could not agree on whether to call for his ouster or for him to continue in office as talks over his tenure polarised the governors along pro and anti-President Goodluck Jonathan lines.

According to the governor, “There was a division among the governors on whether Tukur should continue as the national chairman of the party or not.”

One of the governors, however, informed THISDAY that they agreed at the meeting that Tukur did not have the capacity to lead the party but acknowledged that it was the backing of Jonathan that had kept him in office.

It was learnt that the governors might meet again after the August 31 special national convention of the party.

However, Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, opened up last night on why the reconciliation efforts spearheaded by Obasanjo hit the rocks.

Nyako, who was at the State House to see the president privately, told reporters afterwards that the governors had insisted that the matter of who is the legitimate leader of the NGF should be resolved in favour of Amaechi.

Giving the attributes of who should be the prototype leader of the NGF, Nyako said such a leader should be confident, trustworthy, a team player and capable of commanding the respect of even the president.

He said the standard of who should lead the governors has already been established, adding that the criteria are: “He must be somebody we trust. I would like to have a leader of the forum who when he is with the president in the small room talking about Adamawa State can put in a word for Adamawa.

“He should not be someone who will aggravate issues in the eyes of Mr President. That element of trust must be there. If I vote for somebody it must be somebody I can trust.”

Another attribute he gave is that the chairman of the forum must be able to add some value to the president.

“If you have a forum leader who is seen to be part of the president that has become a ‘yes man’ of Mr. President, then the governors will say he is not representing our interests.

“If he is not representing the interest of the governors, he is not representing the interests of the ordinary Nigerians,” he added.

Nyako insisted that by making an arithmetical deduction, Amaechi is the current leader of the NGF.

"When you say 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, even someone who is in elementary school knows which a higher. So if one group got 19 votes and the other got 16, in a democracy even in the eyes of the people in elementary school, they know that 19 is higher than 16.
“It should not be turned into a controversy. We should all agree that whoever got the highest figure won the election,” he said.

He said Jang, who is also laying claims to the leadership of the forum, did not win the election, pointing out that the question of whether the Plateau governor should step down does not even arise. “Step down for what? Did he win the election?” he asked.

He said all these were part of what they informed Obasanjo on Monday and Tuesday nights.

“It was part of it, but you should understand the rationale. What we are saying here is that if he (Jang) is going to step down because he is second winner, then that is their business and it is not the business of others or the winner. Jang was number two, he got the second highest votes and that is the way forward,” he said.

Meanwhile, the PDP Appeal Committee for the Anambra State governorship election has cleared Hon. Tony Nwoye and Ugochukwu Okeke for the governorship primaries   slated for August 24.

With their clearance, the number of aspirants for the primaries has risen to 15.
The screening committee, headed by Ambassador Aminu Wali, had last week cleared 13 aspirants, while disqualifying four others.

The chairman of the Appeal Committee, Alhaji Muhmud Shinkafi, announced Nwoye and   Okeke’s clearance, while disqualifying Sylvester Okonkwo and Damian Onwuanyim. He said the duo was disqualified as a result of “issues on tax clearance”.

Also, the crisis in the state chapter of the party has started to affect preparations for the governorship primaries as the Chairman of the Ward Congresses, Udeh Okoh, submitted the result of the ward elections that took place on Monday in the state. Okoh is from the Ken Emeakayi-faction recognised by PDP.

Accordingly, the conduct of the ward primaries was not monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which has rejected PDP’s overtures to recognise Emeakayi as the state chairman of the party.

Rather than monitor the ward primaries ordered by the national secretariat of the party, INEC, the police, and the Department of State Security (DSS) monitored the one conducted by the INEC-recognised state chairman, Ejike Oguebeogu.