As PDP Crisis Deepens: Jonathan begs Govs Aliyu, Lamido‏

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The alleged resolve by majority of the governors
of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to remove
the embattled National Chairman of the party,
Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, forced the Presidency to
suspend the meeting of the Board of Trustees
(BoT) and National Executive Committee, NEC,
Sunday Vanguard has learnt.
It also emerged that President Goodluck Jonathan
wanted the party leadership to have more time to
persuade warring Governor Babangida Aliyu of
Niger State and his Jigawa State counterpart,
Alhaji Sule Lamido, to return fully to the PDP
before the NEC meeting.
The NEC meeting, earlier fixed for Wednesday,
January 8, will now hold on January 16, with the
BoT meeting scheduled for January 15 and the
National Caucus meeting slated for January 14.
It was gathered that the Presidency got strong
evidence that the anti-Tukur forces, led by a
South-south governor and a minister, who is also
from the South-south, compelled the party
hierarchy to postpone the meetings.
A party leader told Sunday Vanguard, last night,
that the governor, who has the ears of many
other PDP governors, was frontally opposed to the
continued retention of Tukur and had successfully
mobilised for the removal of the party chairman
during the NEC meeting.
The governor was said to have met and agreed
with the South-south minister, who is also close to
Jonathan, to impress upon other governors to do
all that was necessary to remove Tukur at the
meeting.
However, Jonathan, who is opposed to disgracing
the party boss out of office, reportedly asked for
the postponement of the two meetings to allow
for peace to reign.
The argument of the governor and the minister is
that apart from being loyal to Jonathan, Tukur
has allowed the party to be factionalised to a
point that five governors left.
But the pro-Jonathan camp within the party
allegedly argued for the retention of Tukur
because of his exceptional loyalty to the
president.
The meeting was also said to have been
postponed at the instance of the president to give
the party leadership more time to persuade
Governors Aliyu and Lamido to forget the past
and fully return to the party ahead of the 2015
elections.
Jonathan was alleged to have expressed worry
that the true position of the two governors on the
party remained unknown even though they did
not defect along with their five colleagues in the
G7 last December to the opposition All Progressive
Congress, APC.
But the Secretary of the PDP BoT, Senator Walid
Jibrin, explained that the meetings were
postponed for logistics reason and to enable
members return from their Christmas and New
Year break.
“We actually want to have a full house during the
meetings so that all party issues could be
effectively discussed,” Jibrin said.
It will be recalled that prior to the defection of
Governors Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara; Aliyu
Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto; Musa Rabiu
Kwankwaso of Kano; Murtala Nyako of Adamawa
and Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers to APC, there was
pressure on Tukur to convene the NEC meeting
where the problems of the PDP would be
addressed against the backdrop that the last NEC
was held before the August 31, 2013 Special
National Convention.
The NEC meeting ought to have taken place in
the third week of December last year, but was
shelved for inexplicable reasons.