The crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP deepened at
the weekend just as reasons stoking the conflict that has pitched President
Goodluck Jonathan and his aides against the National Working Committee, NWC of
the party began to unfold. At the heart of the crisis, Vanguard learnt is the
struggle for the soul of the party ahead of the 2019 presidential election.
Vanguard reported that associates of President Jonathan are
determined to shove away the Adamu Mu‘azu-led NWC in favour of a more pliable
executive for the purpose of ensuring the return of President Jonathan as
presidential candidate or in the alternative a candidate of their choice in
2019.
The NWC, Vanguard learnt was, however, looking beyond
Jonathan with their eyes fixed on the Northeast for the 2019 presidential
candidate with a leading chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC from
that region in their sights.
Besides, authoritative sources also disclosed outstanding issues
in the 2015 elections between presidency officials and the NWC over the
handling of the election campaign in which party officials were complaining of
their sidelining by the president.
Multiple sources also traced the quarrel between the PDP NWC
and the presidency to the stout refusal of the National Chairman of the party,
Alhaji Adamu Mu‘azu to reject the outcome of the presidential election as had
been suggested to him by presidency officials even after the president had
himself accepted the outcome of the elections.
Meanwhile, the NWC in a rejection of the presidency
pressures is to inaugurate a 15-man committee to redesign the future of the
party. The committee to be chaired by the deputy president of the Senate, Ike
Ekweremadu, Vanguard gathered, will proclaim the new face of the party outside
the considerations of the thoughts of the Jonathan presidency.
Meanwhile, leading figures in the NWC continued to reject
the pressures on them to resign from office yesterday with the National
Secretary of the party, Prof. Adewale Oladipo flaying the moves as part of a
conspiracy to derail efforts to rebuild the party to its preeminent position in
the country.
The battle line between the presidency and the NWC was
firmly established last weekend after the Mu‘azu and the National Publicity
Secretary in two different statements warned against efforts by presidency
officials to instigate the sacking of the NWC.
The National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in his
statement, had warned those he described as some ambitious aides and associates
of President Goodluck Jonathan trying to use their closeness to him to cause
crisis in the party and pave way for more defection to other parties.
Giving reasons for the squabble a high-level official said:
“The thinking in the president’s camp is that after four years, Buhari would
have done very badly and Nigerians would demand the return of President
Jonathan and the president’s people know that there is no way he can get the
ticket through the present NWC.”
The president’s discomfort with the NWC, it was learnt
flowed from the lack of confidence the president had in the days leading to the
campaign when he sidetracked the national officers of the party in marshalling
his campaign.
The distrust between the presidency and the NWC flowed from
what one party source said was the refusal of some critical members of the NWC
to take some hard-line stance against the Buhari candidacy. Mu‘azu and Metuh,
Vanguard gathered were especially faulted for throwing softballs at Buhari at
the height of the campaign.
Even more, sources in Abuja disclosed that the suspicion
against Mu‘azu peaked after he reportedly rejected entreaties to him by
presidency officials to formally reject and instigate judicial proceedings
against the outcome of the presidential elections.
Giving reasons for Mu‘azu’s rejection of the entreaty, a
source privy to the development said:
“After the president conceded to Buhari senior PDP officials
were called together to the villa where the decision was taken that Mu’azu
should reject the INEC result and file a case against it, but Mu’azu rejected
it that it was unthinkable since the president had already conceded,” one
source disclosed.
Not long after, presidency aides through some governors
mounted pressures on the NWC members to resign, a development that was
stubbornly rebuffed by the NWC members. Not long after, some governors were
said to have returned to the NWC members to tell them that the decision for
them to resign came from the villa.
The villa like some other critical stakeholders in the party
believes that the NWC members should resign from office having led the party to
the worst electoral outing since the formation of the party 17 years ago.
The NWC members, however, rebuff the entreaty on the claim
that they were impeded in their work by the decision of the president to put
all his energies on the leadership of the Presidential Campaign Council, PCC
and sideline the top hierarchy of the party.
Even the PCC it was learnt was itself also not well primed
for its job. One of the state directors lamented that not once were the state
directors called together for strategy meetings on how they would deliver the
president.
“I met the director-general few days to the campaign and
urged him to summon a strategy meeting for state directors but he told me not
to worry that everything was on course, and you can see the outcome,” the state
director disclosed.
In firmly rejecting pressures on him to resign, the national
secretary of the party, Prof. Oladipo in a statement personally signed by him
said his:
“It is therefore disheartening that rather than joining
other well-meaning members of our great party in supporting the National
Working Committee in the on-going re-engineering process to rebuild the PDP,
some elders from our zone, particularly, a former Deputy National Chairman,
Chief Olabode George, who should know, have instead resorted to divisive
politics by attempting to instigate our members against one another.
“What our party needs now in the southwest and indeed across
the country is for all hands to be on the deck as we work harmoniously in our
determination to reposition the PDP to regain power in 2019. Our party members
are by this therefore charged to watch out for individuals whose agenda is to
sow seeds of discord and pave way for crisis within our fold for their selfish
interests.
“The National Working Committee is now more than ever before
determined to rebuild the PDP and restore its glory as the preeminent political
party in Nigeria.”
Meanwhile, the party yesterday unveiled the composition of
the 15-man committee that is expected to review the outcome of the last general
elections and give a direction of the way to go in the future.
The committee is made up of Governor Godswill Akpabio of
Akwa Ibom State; Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State; Governor Ibrahim Hassan
Dankwambo; Governor-elect of Rivers, Nyesom Wike; Minister of Education,
Ibrahim Shekarau; former governor of Niger State, Abdulkadir Kure; Deputy
Speaker, House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha; Minister of Interior. Mr.
Abba Moro; Alh. Adamu Waziri; Sen. Ahmed Makarfi; Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe
Chief Pegba Otemolu and Mrs. Funmi Ayoola, has the Secretary, PDP Board of
Trustees, BoT, Sen. Walid Jibril as Member and Secretary.
