‘For PDP, decision of BoT will reign’
… As front-runners emerge for the chairmanship
AGAINST all odds and the controversy surrounding its leadership crisis, the embattled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may settle for whatever decision the Board of Trustees (BoT) has taken regarding the Board’s chairman.
Besides, the party insisted that action of the BoT will not in anyway affect its plan to unveil a new national chairman for the party next week.
The BoT met Wednesday in spite of an earlier statement issued by the party spokesman, Mr. Olisa Metu, which shifted all meetings of the party’s statutory caucuses and organs initially billed for this week, to next week.
At the meeting, the Board of Trustees removed Dr. Haliru Bello Mohammed as its acting chairman and directed its Secretary, Senator Walid Jibril, to act as chairman.
But speaking on the development, the vice chairman of the party, South-South, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh said that there was nothing wrong or abnormal with the BoT meeting and the outcome, disclosing that the party would stand by their decision.
“The Board of Trustees has held its own meeting and have appointed an acting chairman for itself and the party will respect it, and that is because they are self-regulatory,” he stated in an interview with The Guardian.
According to him, by the structure established by the PDP Constitution, the “BoT is the owner of the party but is not the chief executive of the party, they are not the National Working Committee. And its position is advisory and they regulate themselves.
“It is free to do whatever it wants to do and it is also free to advise the party, when it advises the party, they advise NEC, it is not mandatory that NEC must take its advise but it can consider it.”
He said that the BoT members were very responsible citizens and leaders of the country in their own right and should be accorded the respect they deserved.
Ojougboh claimed that there was no leadership crisis in the PDP but challenges arising from being the largest party in Africa and the need to always carry every member of the party along in whatever it does.
His words: “This is the biggest party in Africa whether you like it or not. Membership is not less that 10 million; so for a party this big you know that decisions must be painstakingly done so that you can arrive at a good decision. That is the difficulty the party has been having.
“The North East has been mandated to produce an acting chairman and hopefully by Monday they will have it. So there is no crisis in the party, this thing you see going on in the party is democratic. For instance Ahmed Gulak went to court, it is his right to go to court.”
He argued that the fact that Gulak went to court showed that he was exercising his right as a member of the party, in spite of the fact that the party has a provision in its constitution, which stipulated that before you go to court, you must have exhausted all the reconciliatory and peace–making mechanism available to the party.
“In spite of that the party has not taken any action against him, we still regard him as a member of the party and one of us. Because we are a democratic party we consider the interest of everybody that is why the PDP is one big family,” he added.
Ojougboh said that the issue presently before the party was that the NEC would meet next week and take a decision on the chairmanship based on advice of the North East of the party.
The PDP’s vice chairman said that the party was working assiduously to put its house in order and that they would come out of the challenges stronger.
Although, the troubled PDP is yet to wriggle out of its leadership squabbles, indications are that the search for the national chairman of the party may have been narrowed down to two front-runners.
Besides, it is still uncertain whether the embattled opposition party would be able to overcome all the odds and choose a chairman next week when the different organs meet to ratify the choice of the North East.
Members from the North East were not able to reach a compromise on a particular contender last week when they were billed to meet in Gombe, hence the decision to meet this week, by which time it was hoped that a preference would have emerged.
But a statement from the national spokesman of the party, Mr. Olisa Metu shifting the meetings of the statutory organs to next week, indicated that all was not still well. Even Metu admitted that much when he disclosed the shift was as a result of “requests by critical stakeholders and leaders.”
So far, two front-runners have emerged according to sources close to the party in the North East. The Guardian learnt that Rufai Ahmed Alkali, a former Senior Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Jonathan and a former Minister of State for Power, Mohammed Wakil.
Other contenders are: Ahmed Gulak, a former political aide to Jonathan and who actually championed the course for the leadership change; a former national vice-chairman of the party, Wilberforce Juta; the immediate past Minister of the FCT, Bala Mohammed; the party’s deputy national Publicity Secretary, Adullahi Jalo; and Paul Wampana a party stalwart from Adamawa state.
An official claimed that the choice of Gulak and Jalo were deliberately being shelved because they have become too controversial in their quest, and have been tainted with divisive tendency.
However,another official of the party who was optimistic that a new chairman would emerge by Tuesday next week, hinted yesterday evening that Alkali was preferred to Wakil.
“The Governors are interested in him; the National Assembly members are also interested in him. It’s only the G-84 that has not taken a side,” the official stated.
The G-84 made up of all the deputies and the state chairmen as well as the national officers were said to be favourably disposed to the chairmanship of Alkali and were expected to endorse him when they meet next week, according to the official.
“The problem is almost over, party leadership has met in all caucuses, and they have all agreed that the national chairmanship will emerge by next week.”
Similarly, it was revealed that efforts have been intensified to reconcile aggrieved party members and that four key figures in the leadership squabble – including the deputy national organizing secretary, deputy national secretary and deputy publicity secretary have virtually been reintegrated.
“The four deputies that were attacking the party including the deputy national organizing secretary, deputy national secretary and deputy publicity secretary have all been properly reconciled to the party and they have come back to the party fully,” the official said.
The official who claimed that the party was now firmly together as one united body, divulged that party member, not from North East zone, have been warned to keep clear of the selection process of the new chairman, as it was an internal affairs of the zone.
“Everybody is happy with the development because we want to go into the congresses without any lacuna, we don’t want anybody to go to court and say what you have done is rubbish,” the official explained.
Nonetheless, it is not clear yet how the party will manage the tenacity of Gulak who is still in court over the leadership tussle.
Since the defeat of former President Goodluck Jonathan, who is from the South-South, and the subsequent resignation of the party’s national chairman, Ahmadu Adamu Mua’zu, who is from the North-East, the PDP family has remained in disarray, hardly agreeing on almost any issue.
While Jonathan’s defeat had put to rest, at least in the meantime, the tussle for the presidency, the search for Mu’azu’s replacement has remained a subject of discord.
Recall that in October 2015, the national leadership of the PDP zoned the presidency to the North, saying it has learned its lessons and would never repeat any such mistake in the future.
Get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox every day of the week. Stay informed with the Guardian’s leading coverage of Nigerian and world news, business, technology and sports.
1 Comments
Let the reforms in PDP run its course. It is an in-house thing. Let nature run its business. Once bitten, twice shy. They better not make the same mistake twice.
We will review and take appropriate action.