By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor, Tony Edike, Henry Umoru & Susan Edeh
LAGOS — Plans to adopt a consensus list of candidates into next national executive of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were derailing yesterday after the top candidate on the consensus list, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, failed to win support among officials in his North-East base.

From right: Peoples Democratic Party, Pdp, Vice Chairman, North-West. Amb. Ibrahim Musa Kazauwuri; Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State; Vice President Namadi Sambo and Speaker, House Of Representatives Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal during the Pdp North -West zone executive election, at Murtala Square, Kaduna, yesterday.

Tukur was soundly defeated in the North-East zonal congress by the Acting National Secretary of the party, Dr. Babayo Musa who polled 14 votes to the two votes scored by Tukur in the poll conducted among members of the zonal caucus.

Tukur’s defeat was immediately traced to deepening political intrigues surrounding preparations for the 2015 presidential contest.

Tukur in a sharp reaction to the adoption of Babayo dismissed the zonal caucus as a non-event, nonsensical and a vindictive action he claimed was masterminded by Governors Isa Yuguda, Murtala Nyako and Baba Suntai of Bauchi, Adamawa and Taraba states respectively.

The South-East caucus was, however, a surprising exception as the zone unanimously adopted the erstwhile National Vice-Chairman, Chief Olisa Metuh for the post of National Publicity Secretary and erstwhile Minister of Aviation, Dr. Kemafo Chikwe for the position of National Women Leader.

The sound defeat of Tukur, it was learnt, yesterday, meant a collapse of the earlier agreement between governors and the Presidency on the adoption of a consensus list of candidates for the next executive of the party.

The governors, it was learnt, had earlier caved in and surrendered to the desire of the Presidency to have its way in the election of the next executive of the party. However, multiple sources said, yesterday, that the agreement was breached by North-East governors who were not at ease with the aspiration of Tukur.

Defeat linked to 2015 presidential poll

Tukur’s defeat, Vanguard learnt, was also being linked to the intrigues around the 2015 presidential election given the claim in some quarters that he was backed by the Presidency because he was allegedly the first big man from the North to back President Jonathan’s aspiration for the Presidency ahead of the 2011 election.

“Since those in the Presidency said the basis of supporting him was that he was the first big man from the North to back the President’s bid for the presidency, then it meant that if he became party chairman he could also back the President for the 2015 presidential election,” one top official in the outgoing executive of the party told Vanguard last night.

Signs of Tukur’s defeat were shadowed by mutterings of his non-committal to party affairs at the zonal, state and local levels. He had been accused of not participating in the party’s ward, local government and state congresses in his native Adamawa State.

A last minute plan by Tukur to burnish his party image by attending the zonal congress as exclusively reported by Vanguard, yesterday, failed as he failed to make it to Bauchi before the end of the congress.

Controversy was, however, shadowing yesterday’s stakeholders’ meeting of the North-East caucus.

Vanguard sources disclosed that a caucus meeting of the zone in Bauchi, Tuesday night, failed to agree on the choice of a chairman even after all other offices allocated to the zone were shared. Seven of the 11 chairmanship candidates were present at the venue and reportedly spoke without agreeing to step down.

It was thus agreed by the stakeholders, including some governors, that all 11 candidates from the zone should be allowed to go and fight it out on the convention ground on Saturday.

However, some of the senior stakeholders reportedly reconvened yesterday morning where they took the decisive poll won by Babayo.

Supporters of some of the candidates were, however, miffed by the process as they queried the basis of the votes.

“Who were those who voted and on what basis were they selected to vote,” one official asked.

It’s nonsensical – Tukur

Tukur responding to the outcome of the vote dismissed the vote as nonsensical and inconsequential as he promised to take his quest to the convention floor.

“If the Governors of Adamawa, Taraba and Bauchi think that they own the North-East, they are joking because the way they think they have been running their states cannot be the way they will think for the zone. We reject the process in its entirety and even if it is consensus, 15 people who voted cannot represent the zone.

It is a very wrong process, we have delegates who are from the zone,” Tukur told Vanguard last night through his Special Assistant, Ahmed Shuaibu-Gara Gombe.