By Henry Umoru

THESE are not be the best of times for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the self acclaimed largest party in Africa and its managers following the lingering crisis and the in-house bickering.

In the last couple of weeks, the Alhaji Bamanga Tukur-led National Working Committee, NWC, has been entangled in a debacle in which some party leaders try to outdo one another. At the heart of it all is the issue of who controls the machinery of the party ahead of the 2015 general elections.

Though the problems existed before Tukur became the National Chairman of PDP on March 24, 2012, the climax came on August 31, 2013 at Eagle Square, Abuja, venue of the PDP Special National Convention when former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and six aggrieved governors staged a walkout.

Atiku and the six governors later addressed a press conference on the formation of a ‘New PDP’ with a former Acting National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, named the National Chairman; Sam Sam Jaja as Deputy National Chairman and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola as National Secretary.

The aggrieved governors are Sule Lamido of Jigawa State; Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara; Aliyu Babangida of Niger; Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto; Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano; and Murtala Nyako of Adamawa.

The governors were at the venue of the convention until 2.45 pm when they stormed out and immediately left for Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre to address the media. Their grouse, among others, was the exclusion of the names of their candidates in the election of national officers into the mainstream PDP including the immediate past Deputy National Chairman, Jaja, leaving only the former National Organising Secretary, Prince Uche Secondus as the sole candidate.

File: President Goodluck Jonathan flanked by Vice President Namadi Sambo (L) and the National Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, while the Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih (R) watches during the Post-National Convention Dinner of the party at the Banquet Hall, State House, Abuja.

Three weeks after the emergence of the ‘New PDP’, there is suggestion that the road to the 2015 presidential election will be rough for the ruling party.

To resolve the crisis, former President Olusegun Obasanjo led other elders of the party to meet the aggrieved governors. The meeting was deadlocked as issues raised did not go down well gone with the Baraje-led faction and they stormed out.

At the end of the meeting, it was gathered that the Baraje-led PDP presented their demands before Obasanjo and the other party elders that Tukur must be sacked and a new convention organised to elect national officers as the August 31 convention was not acceptable to them, even as they asked for the recognition of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State as the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum by President Goodluck Jonathan, adding that the suspension placed on Amaechi by the party must be lifted.

A source said however that the Tukur group insisted that most of the demands of the Baraje faction were not responsible, adding that  the NWC was validly elected and the decision to leave office would be determined by individuals and the entire party.

It was also gathered that lifting the  suspension on Amaechi would suffer a major setback because of the governor’s court case, even as the source said only the President was capable of deciding whether to recognise Amaechi as the Chairman of the NGF or not.

It was also learnt that Jonathan might demand the backing of the governors for his second term if he was going to respond to the demands of the ‘New PDP’, especially the sacking of Tukur.

But barely 24 hours after the meeting and while peace moves were still on going, the crisis  took a new dimension as heavily armed police men sealed off the office of the Baraje-led PDP located on Plot 3206A, No 4, Oyi River Crescent, Maitama, Abuja.

Reacting to the closure, the faction’s National Secretary, Oyinlola, who noted that they were not surprised by the action taken by the Tukur-led PDP to use the police to shut the secretariat, described it as the height of impunity. Oyinlola added that security forces were mobilised to seal off the office based on a non-existent court injunction which the mainstream PDP claimed to have obtained.

Also in the middle of the peace moves, Tukur sacked the  Kano State PDP Working Committee, SWC, believed to be loyal to Governor Kwankwaso and replaced it with an 11-member Caretaker Committee.

This has been interpreted to mean that the Tukur PDP may have concluded arrangements to move against Kwankwaso as the party Chairman was said to have pleaded with the son of the late military head of state and former governorship aspirant of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Kano State, Mohammed Abacha, to join the PDP.

Mohammed Abacha, with the coast clear for him, last week, stormed the party national secretariat with his supporters, dumped the CPC and bounced back to the PDP which he joined in 2010 but also left same year.

Sunday Vanguard gathered that riding on the back of the expired Kano State executive to put in place a Caretaker Committee to run the affairs of the party in the state was part of the moves by Tukur to punish Kwankwaso.

There are also speculations of move to removes the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, for allegedly supporting the aggrieved governors and the ‘New PDP’, just as arrangements were on to destabilise the National Assembly.

An indication that it was not yet Uhuru in the PDP family was the decision of the Baraje-led PDP to stay away from the dinner which took place last Sunday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, stressing that it was  ironical to attend when Nigerians were wallowing in abject poverty and members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on strike with the university students at home, even as the group urged Tukur to leave Atiku, Amaechi and others alone and face the problems confronting the PDP.

In a reaction, the PDP National Chairman said he was not prepared to exchange words with Baraje as his focus was how to redouble his efforts towards providing dividends of democracy to Nigerians.

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, who spoke on behalf of Tukur, said, “We will not exchange words with our aggrieved brothers, reconciliation is on going and we will not provoke a dislocation of the reconciliation. Our focus is to redouble our efforts to ensure that our party members rededicate themselves to the party and for our elected and appointed representatives to work harder now more than ever before in satisfying the yearnings of Nigerians.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan held a trace meeting with the Baraje group. A follow up meeting is scheduled for October 7.

At the meeting, although all the issues were not resolved, a source said, ‘tremendous success was recorded and we have agreed to resolve the issues quietly.”

The source went on: “We agreed that there should be no more statements in the media because some of the issues are personal and they are not something you redress in the media. We agreed to set up a committee to iron out the issues and implement the resolutions we reached.

“On Rivers State, the party structure is the major problem. We agreed that the Board of Trustees should get involved and get both parties to withdraw the matter from court so that we can arrive at a harmonious result.
”On Adamawa, we agreed to re-integrate the party structure that was dissolved.

The party structure before it was dissolved was with the governor and he demanded that it should be re-instated and we agreed. There was no Tukur’s structure in the first place. We had always agreed that the dissolution of the Adamawa exco cannot be allowed to stand.

“The committee being set up will look at the issues; there are about eight of them in number, and resolve them quietly. The Baraje nPDP/Amaechi and the Tukur PDP have agreed on the methodology of settling the issues. We will not allow the crisis to fester because PDP is too large. If there is problem in the PDP, it will affect the whole nation.”

Also speaking on the outcome of the meeting, the Chairman, PDP Governors’ Forum and governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, noted that the reconciliation process initiated by the president would achieve a permanent solution when the parties involved in the crisis meet again on October 7.

“We have started a process of total reconciliation and of course you know the house is very large, very robust and PDP is very entrenched and there is no way we can have internal wrangling without being able to resolve it. So, clearly speaking it was just a family disagreement and the processes are in place now to bring everybody on board and Nigerians are very happy,” Akpabio said.

“On the issue of 2015, both sides agreed that it wasn’t an issue for discussion because every single person has a right to have ambition. Some of the governors may have ambition like I have ambition to go to Senate and you can’t discuss anything about another person’s ambition. You are the only person that can discuss your own ambition. Ambition is personal. So both parties agreed to that.

“The disagreement differs from state to state. So, it wasn’t as if there was a major issue with all PDP governors. There were few states that had difficulties. Some states complained about their delegates not being allowed entry to Eagles Square, some complained about party positions and some had court issues. But these are all things that we cannot allow to affect the fabric of the party and of course by implication the fabric of the nation because the PDP is Nigeria.

“We have been in power for the past 14 years and Nigerians have confidence that this is the only truly national party that expresses true aspirations of all and sundry and of course it is also the only party that is not owned by any individual. It’s a party that belongs to all Nigerians. Even the market woman in Sokoto claims ownership of the PDP and of course the same thing with the trader in Akwa Ibom state. The same thing with somebody in the south west and the same thing in south east. So, the PDP is Nigeria and so anything that affects the PDP will affect the entire country.