Tukur ,PDP NWC Members Exchange Hot Words At Meeting With GEJ

 

The intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan in the crisis rocking the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have failed as NWC members at a meeting on Thursday night at the Presidential Villa openly accused the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, of "running a one-man show".

President Jonathan had on Thursday night held a meeting with the party's national chairman and nine members of the NWC at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The meeting was to afford President Jonathan the opportunity of getting full and accurate information about the genesis of the crisis rocking the party with a view to resolving it.

Ahead of the meetings of the national caucus, Board of Trustees (BoT) and National Executive Committee (NEC) slated for next week, President Jonathan had been holding series of meetings to resolve the crisis rocking the party. In one of such meetings on Tuesday he met with Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State and on Wednesday in another meeting attended by the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, it was agreed that a meeting of the NWC should be summoned to listen to views of the NWC members on the crisis.

At the meeting which kicked off at 9 pm on Thursday with President Jonathan presiding, it was gathered that each of the NWC members laid the blame of the crisis rocking the party on the doorstep of Tukur, accusing him of taking unilateral decisions on several issues.

An NWC member who would not want to be named told THISDAY that, " the national chairman was accused of running the party without inputs from the critical stakeholders of the party like the PDP governors, members of the Board of Trustees (BoT), members of National Assembly, State Party Chairmen and conducing the affairs of the party from his Wuse 2 residence.

"For instance, the NWC members said that the decision to dissolve the executive committee in Kwara and Sokoto states' chapters of the PDP was not a decision of the NWC. We told the President that we attended the inauguration of the Kwara State executive Caretaker Committee, so as not to present the impression that the NWC is a divided house".

The source said NWC members at the meeting also dissociated themselves from the dissolution of the executive chapters in Kwara and Sokoto States adding that even the National Organising Secretary, Abubakar Mustapha, was not aware of the dissolution.
The President was said to have been told that the NWC had held only four meetings since the August 31, 2013 special national convention of the party. They were said to have hinged the fact that most of the NWC members had not been coming to the party secretariat regularly because the national chairman had been using his residence as office.

"In fact, all the NWC members at the meeting, nine of us, pointed accusing fingers at the national chairman as the cause of the crisis rocking the party. As we speak at the meeting, the President was surprised and could not believe that this was what was happening at the NWC", the source said.

The NWC member also said that members at the meeting noted that governors of the party no longer visit the national secretariat of the part as they used to do, because of the style of administration adopted by Tukur which had reduced the activities at the party secretariat.

Asked what was the response of Tukur to all the allegations against him, the NWC member said, "The national chairman first started by saying that it was a gang up and an attempt to remove him and make the President vulnerable.

"He also said that at first, he wanted to work with a team that would deliver victory to the President at the 2015 presidential elections, but that what he got was a group and not a team. But the NWC members at the meeting responded by telling him that he was not in a position to ensure the success of the President at the 2015 presidential elections alone because it should be seen as a collective duty and not the job of the chairman alone."

At this stage, the President was said to have called off the meeting and informed the NWC members and the national chairman that he would get back to them soon.

The party had last week announced the postponement of the BoT and NEC meetings slated January 7 and 8, a development which sources said was aimed at providing enough time for the party’s leadership to appease those planning to use the opportunity of the meeting to bring their grievances to the fore and push for the removal of Tukur.

Following the crisis that had been plaguing the party after it held its special convention last year, five of its governors - Rabiu Kwankwanso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Ahmed Abdulfatah (Kwara) and Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers), had since defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Meanwhile, concerned members of PDP in Kwara State have rejected the caretaker committee inaugurated for the party by the national chairman.

The caretaker commitee members appointed by Tukur is headed by Hon. Solomon Edoja from Delta State, while Alhaji Jubril Bala Jos from Plateau State is the secretary.

Checks revealed that, the concerned members were not satisfied with the appointment of non-Kwarans as chairman and secretary of the long-awaited caretaker committee.

A party source who would not want his name mentioned confided in our correspondent on Friday that the aggrieved party members have threatened to abandon the party if the trend was not reversed.

The said that the concerned party members were of the opinion that "the composition of the caretaker committee shows that the national leadership of PDP does not have confidence in the ability of those parading themselves as leaders of the party in the state".

According to them, "we are not happy with the development; it is a slap on our faces, particularly our leaders that are claiming to be on ground.

"The problem now is how will those non-indigenes understand Kwara politics because our politics here in Kwara is different from any other state".
The aggrieved PDP members emphasized that "this is not our expectation at this critical period, all we need are indigenes with credibility".