Goodluck Meets Sule Lamido,Aliyu Babangida

President Goodluck Jonathan met with two members of the G-7 governors who chose to remain in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after the defection of five of their former colleagues to the opposition All People Congress (APC) .

The President met with governors Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Babangida Aliyu (Niger) at the Presidential Villa on Sunday night ostensibly to chart a way forward in the lingering PDP crisis.

It was learnt that the governors would table three issues before Jonathan including their allegation against the National Chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur of overheating the polity by suspending chieftains of party without consultation and holding of its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, the poor state of the economy which they believed was being hammered on by the opposition and the issue of missing federal revenue.

While the five of the original G-7including Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) and Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) had announced defection, two others, including Aliyu and Lamido chose to remain in the PDP.

Sunday’s meeting followed the one held earlier in the evening by PDP governors at the Akwa Ibom state lodge, Sokor, Abuja ostensibly to coordinate their position before the meeting with the President at the Presidential Villa.

Eleven PDP governors and two deputy governors attended the Akwa Ibom state lodge meeting which lasted for about two hours before they proceeded to the Villa to meet the President.

They are Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Martins Elechi (Ebonyi), Sullivan Chime (Enugu), Idris Wada (Kogi), Jonah Jang (Plateau), Shehu Shema (Katsina), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Theodore Orji (Abia), Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), Serike Dickson (Bayelsa), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), as well as Niger and Kaduna deputy governors.

PDP governors absent at the Akwa Ibom state lodge meeting included Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Ibrahim Dankwambo ( Gombe), Garba Umar (Taraba), Gabriel Suswam ( Benue) and Saidu Dankigari (Kebbi).

The governors declined to speak with waiting reporters at the end of the meeting as they quickly  jumped into their cars and headed to the Villa.

The PDP governors again met with Vice President Namadi Sambo, Secretary to Government of the Federation, Chief Ayim Pius Ayim and the Chief of Staff to the President,  Chief Mike Ogiadomhe in House 7 of the Presidential Villa while President Jonathan was simultaneously holding a separate meeting with Lamido and Aliyu at the First Lady’s Wing of the Presidential Villa.

The PDP governors again refused to speak at the end of the meeting when approached by reporters.

However, all of them were later joined the President and the two aggrieved governor at the First Lady’s Wing.

The meeting with the G-7 had originally been scheduled for penultimate Sunday butwas put off because that was the day Jonathan returned from a meeting of the Nigeria Honourary International Investment Council (HIIC) in London where he took ill.

The President told reporters on his arrival at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja that the meeting would not hold on that day because he was too tired from the six hour flight from London coupled with the fact that he needed to rest as he was just recovering from his sudden illness.

However, he had promised that the meeting would take place during last week but this was not to be as five of the governors announced their defection to APC before there was the opportunity to meet with the President.

However, there was a bit of uncertainty concerning Sunday’s proposed meeting of the President with the G-7 as Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, who would normally be part of such meetings, told Nigerian Tribune in Abuja on Saturday that he was not aware of any plane to hold such meeting.