PDP: Old things are not past, the new is not come

The People’s Democratic Party, PDP is in
a nationwide free for all as entrenched
factions dig in, with neither side having
the capacity to give a knockout punch
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Old things have passed away and the
new PDP of Bayelsa is currently in charge
of the State,” an associate of the
immediate past governor of Bayelsa
State, Chief Timipire Sylva boasted to
some newsmen earlier this week as
opponents of President Goodluck
Jonathan pressed in embarrassingly in
his home front.
The rebellion in the Peoples Democratic
Party, PDP that started exactly two weeks
ago, when six governors and former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar walked out of
the party’s special convention had this
week turned into a phenomenal
distraction to governance.
President Jonathan’s dithering
procrastination on rejigging his cabinet
was set aside as the president at the end
of the normal Wednesday cabinet meeting
sacked nine ministers. In all but two or
three of the cases, those sacked were
allegedly fired because of their
relationships with the president’s
enemies.
Tukur, Jonathan and Baraje
The paralysis in governance was not only
in Abuja. The crisis has also forced many
governors belonging to the party to take
permanent abode in Abuja, the federal
capital, and by that, undercutting the
service to their constituents. Even more
wrenching is the increasing apprehension
that the seat of the federal government,
the Aso Rock presidential villa may have
been turned into an annex of the ruling
party.
For most of this week, several dignitaries
visited the presidential villa for
consultations with the president as the
crisis in the PDP took centre stage in the
polity. Erstwhile military president, Gen.
Ibrahim Babangida who has not been
known to have a face to face meeting with
Jonathan since the fractious 2011 PDP
presidential campaign primaries, called
on the president last Tuesday as part of
the peace emissaries. The meeting came
ahead of the anxiously anticipated peace
meeting between the old PDP or
mainstream faction of the party and the
Baraje led PDP in the presidential villa on
Tuesday.
Remarkably, those who had been
supposedly marginalized in the party, and
had laid low took opportunity of the crisis
to surface. In Bayelsa though those who
came out to identify with the nPDP
according to independent observers may
not have the muscle to derail the fortunes
of the mainstream party, yet it was an
embarrassment for the local chapter of
the party in the president’s backyard.
“The new PDP will resist and match up
any attempt by the Alhaji Bamagar Tukur
led faction to discredit it, as the Abubakar
Baraje led National Working Committee of
the PDP stands for equity and fairness,”
Comrade Esinte was quoted as saying.
Domestic foes of Governor Rabiu
Kwankwanso of KanoState, one of the
rebel seven governors, also saw the
development as an opportunity for them
to take over control of the party.
Several chieftains of the party including
one time speaker of the House of
Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar
Na’abba, Nigeria’s incumbent
ambassador to China, Alhaji Aminu Wali
among others last Tuesday, stormed the
national secretariat of the Bamanga
Tukur led tendency of the party to upstage
the Kwankwanso inclined state executive
of the party in Kano.
The dignitaries who had been invited by
Tukur were later disappointed as the
presidency intervened to stop the coup.
The intervention of the presidency was
arguably informed by persuasions on the
capacities of the Kano governor and his
‘troublesome’ Kwankwansiya movement
in Kano.
It would be recalled that ahead of the
2011 elections, some persons in the
presidency had sought to take the party’s
election ticket from Kwankwanso on the
assumption that he could pose a threat in
2015. The ticket was, however, restored to
him following security reports that doing
otherwise could lead to a breakdown of
security in the state.
Besides Kano, other states where the
Tukur executive has threatened to
dissolve the state executive of the party
are Sokoto, Kwara and Jigawa which are
all states in the sway of the nPDP led by
Alhaji Kawu Baraje.
The threat of dissolution was only one
weapon that was being used by the Tukur
camp in the increasingly belligerent fierce
conflict with the nPDP.
Last Monday, Tukur in a strategic move
aimed at formally identifying his allies
among the powerful state chairmen,
summoned a meeting with the state
chairmen from across the country.
Twenty chairmen turned out and pledged
support to the embattled national
chairman. Some chairmen who are
known to be indifferent if not hostile to the
nPDP, nevertheless stayed away as they
point to Tukur as the major problem of
the party.
While Tukur was using the leverage of his
office to fight off his foes, the Baraje
faction in a seeming determination to
spoil his fun, was at the same time piling
up its own arsenal for battle. At the
beginning of the week, the faction
unfolded a near complete complement of
a national working committee, drawing
extensively from Atiku Abubakar’s
nationwide political structure, prominent
among whom were Chief Chukwuemeka
Eze (national publicity secretary) and
Timi Frank (national youth leader).
Once Eze was named, he went into battle
mood, castigating the Tukur led
mainstream for posing obstacles to peace
in the party.
Meanwhile, the Tuesday night peace
meeting was said to have been
inconclusive. Present on the side of
President Jonathan were Chief Tony
Anenih, the Chairman of the Board of
Trustees, BoT and some governors
including Godswill Akpabio, Akwa Ibom;
Idris Wada, Kogi and Liyel Imoke of Cross
River.
On the part of the nPDP were Governors
Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers); Sule Lamido
(Jigawa); Babangida Aliyu; and Aliyu
Wammako (Sokoto).
In approaching the talks, both sides it
seemed, were resigned to the fact that
nothing fruitful would come out of it given
the extreme position taken by both sides
on the demand on Jonathan not to stand
for re-election. In the end, discussion on
that was deferred to the next scheduled
meeting on Sunday.
The President, it was learnt, came into the
meeting with a mindset of making peace
with the warring governors but with the
notable exception of Governor Amaechi,
seen by the president’s associates in the
Niger Delta as a betrayer of their trust.
According to a source privy to the
deliberations, “The grievances of the
governors were tabled and revisited one
by one by all those at the meeting.
“When the issue of party structure in each
of the affected states came up, the
overriding interest of PDP was put into
the consideration and the President and
his team agreed that the authentic party
structures should be restored in
Adamawa and Kano states.
“As for RiversState, the President and his
team advised all the parties to withdraw
their suits in court to resolve the matter.
“Although the President admitted that the
suspension of Amaechi was illegal and
the required 30 days had elapsed,
everything was predicated on the
resolution of disputes in court.
“There was suspicion by the G-7
governors that the Presidency came with
a mindset to resolve issues except the
crisis in Rivers. They are trying to isolate
Amaechi to deal with him.
“Everybody has been wondering why the
President’s body language was different
on RiversState. Jonathan was non-
committal on the solutions to Rivers
crisis.”
Governor Amaechi was equally reported
to have rejected entreaties from the
President’s camp to step down as
Chairman of the Nigeria Governors
Forum, NGF.
Following the decision of both sides to
reschedule the talks for tomorrow,
Sunday, publicists of the warring parties
went to town to give their own versions of
the talks.
Special Adviser to the President on
Political Matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak
described the demands of the nPDP
governors as unconstitutional. Apparently
referring to the quest of the governors that
Jonathan should rule himself out of the
2015 contest, he submitted that it was an
infringement on the President’s
constitutional right.
Meanwhile, Eze, the firebrand national
publicity secretary of the nPDP in two
major salvos on Wednesday, took on
Tukur, flaying him as the impediment to
peace in the party.
Noting the efforts of party elders to bring
peace to the party and the alleged efforts
by the Tukur tendency to derail them, Eze
also cautioned the Tukur camp against
alleged offensive remarks against some of
the peace mediators, notably, former
President Olusegun Obasanjo and Anenih.
Appealing to the duo not to be deterred,
Eze said:
“We plead with them not to be deterred by
those who are feeding fat on the crisis as
we are ready to assist them in any way
possible to enable them restore peace to
our great party.”
Also noting the belligerence of the Tukur
led faction, he said:
“The latest of the belligerent actions by
the Tukur faction is the ill-advised move
to take over the party’s structures in the
States of the governors loyal to Baraje’s
leadership. We wish to advise Tukur and
his NWC against this or any other action
capable of worsening the crisis. We say:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”
In a surprising twist apparently aimed at
separating Jonathan from Tukur in the
unfolding crisis, he said:
“Meanwhile, we wish to commend the
Party Leader, President Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan, and PDP Elders for their
various efforts at resolving this crisis
which, if allowed to continue, can only
lead to the further weakening of our great
party. We appeal to them never to get tired
until they achieve their set objectives. We
also appeal to Alhaji Tukur and his NWC
to respect these distinguished Party
Elders and give peace a chance. The ball
is in his court.
We have noticed the erroneous
insinuation and propaganda by Tukur’s
faction that the distinguished Statesman,
General Olusegun Obasanjo, had a hand
in our staging a walkout during the ill-
conceived mini-convention of PDP and
that he is the brain behind most of our
activities.
We view this as disparagement on us,
creating the impression that we are not
matured enough to determine our political
future and most importantly, it was as an
attempt to smear the international image
of General Obasanjo as a distinguished
Statesman and father of PDP and rubbish
his current efforts to restore peace to a
party, the very existence of which is being
threatened by the undemocratic acts of
some of its leaders. We can now
understand why Tukur’s faction is hell-
bent on destroying every effort to bring
peace to the party.
“We are also aware of the attempts being
made to rubbish and ridicule the BOT
Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, for stating
that we have genuine reasons for what we
are doing. We want to assure Chief
Anenih, knowing all his sacrifices and
efforts in making PDP whatever it is by
today, that we will not sit and watch
some jokers in Tukur’s faction rubbish
him or make him look ordinary in the
affairs of the party. The truth will always
see us through.”
Tukur, on his part has not kept quiet to
absorb the blows. He has through his
Special Assistant on Media, Prince Oliver
Okpala been on the offensive against his
foes, most notably, the former national
secretary of the party and now the
national secretary of the nPDP, Prince
Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
Reacting to assertions by Oyinlola that
Tukur is a dictator, Okpala said: “Without
equivocation, this statement is both
laughable and ridiculous for the world
know the antecedents of Chief Oyinlola as
a military dictator and administrator,
whose style of politics is at variance with
the current political dispensation in the
country. “It is a fact that Oyinlola was one
of those military punch who held down
our democracy for a long time. As a
former military man, Chief Oyinlola is an
unrepentant dictator of the first-order.
“Under normal circumstance, he should
not be heard to resort to platitudes or
righteous pontifications on the ideals of
democracy and the rule of law. This is
because by training and orientation, he is
a slave to Order and Command of the
Military. He lacks any credible credentials
to sermonize on democracy and due
process including rule of law.” With the
ruling party engulfed in crisis, the
opposition is not surprisingly ecstatic.
Governor Ibikunle Amosun of OgunState
said as much this week when he said the
opposition is praying for the problems in
the PDP to continue so that the opposition
could take over in 2015.