How Jonathan Forced Tukur To Resign

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More facts have emerged on the sudden exit of tough-talking Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Impeccable sources within the PDP and the presidency told LEADERSHIP Weekend that President Goodluck Jonathan forced Tukur to tender his resignation letter following Tukur’s assertion that the president could not force him to leave office.
Although Jonathan allegedly asked Tukur to make the sacrifice to protect the ruling PDP and the office of the president, our correspondent learnt that Tukur’s statement angered the presidency.
President Jonathan had presented Tukur’s resignation letter to the 63rd meeting of the National Executive Committee of the party on Thursday, a few hours after Tukur had boasted that no one, including the president, could force him out of office.
The Presidency and PDP sources said that it was the statement that eventually consumed Tukur as he was immediately invited to meet with the president and a few top political associates such as the chairman of PDP Board of Trustees Chief Tony Anenih, Vice President Namadi Sambo and a few aides where he was confronted with the statement. He answered in the affirmative and this led the president to ask him to resign in order to save the office of the president and the party.
Tukur had reportedly said: “I am an elected national chairman, I have my certificate of return, I cannot resign. The PDP convention brought me, so it has to take the convention that brought me for me to resign. Not even the president can ask me to resign. Remember, some members of the NWC were asked to go recently because the election that brought them was flawed; so Mr President cannot tread that route again.”
One of the presidency sources said: “In fairness to him, Tukur corroborated the media but claimed that he was quoted out of context, but President Jonathan advised him to save the party and the honour of the office of the president by doing the right thing (writing his letter of resignation). He apologised profusely to the president but it was too late for him.”
He further disclosed that the president reminded him that his NEC members had deserted him, and that 37 of the state chairmen had abandoned him including the governors and advised him to do the right thing that could save his integrity and that of the party.
“Tukur was reminded that party officials had left him in the cold, as did the 37 state chairmen, an indication that the PDP governors are no more with him. President Jonathan said since there was no possibility of holding another convention where he could tender his resignation letter as he said, the only way out is to resign but promised that his political career and integrity would be protected.”
Our source explained that the failure of Tukur to reach out to the aggrieved governors on time was his undoing. And instead of reconciling with them, “he was boasting that even the president could not ask him to resign, using the INEC to blackmail. The PDP governors came to meet with the president and urged him to call Tukur to order in the interest of the party. And that was all,” the source said.
When asked who would be named as the acting chairman, the source said the odds favoured former governor of Bauchi State Adamu Muazu, but most members were yearning for Babayo Shehu.
“It is too early to know who the president supports. Some are rooting for Adamu Muazu but some are saying he and his governor are not relating well and this could bring a replica of Tukur and Nyako fiasco; some want Babayo Shehu, a political associate of Chief Anenih, but the fact that he was supported by former vice president Atiku (Abubakar) may work against him,” he said.
North-east governors meet Jonathan
The governors who met with President Jonathan yesterday were Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), Ibrahim Dankwabo (Gombe), acting governor Garba Umar (Taraba) and Bala James Ngilari (deputy governor of Adamawa).
Governor Yuguda of Bauchi, who did not admit that they were in the villa over the issue of the new party chairman, also denied that the governors were not ready to accept any chairman that emerges from their states.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the meeting, Yuguda asked: “Are we God? It’s God that gives power. Supposing he gives somebody from my state, a PDP state, what will I do? I will follow him. Let us not go into that kind of imagination.”
Tukur’s exit, internal democracy at work – PDP
Basking in the resolution of the controversy that preceded the resignation of its national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the ruling PDP yesterday described the resignation as an exhibition of political maturity and the expression of the internal democratic mechanism within the party.