NO PEACE AT SIGHT! ‘Tukur Must Resign Now’, G-7 Govs tell Jonathan
*Insist: “We want a better meeting after Hajj Operations”
BY SALMON HAMMAN/ASSISTANT POLITICAL EDITOR
THE unending political scenario unfolding in Nigeria’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have no end, as the ‘New PDP’-a breakaway faction of the party led by Alhaji Kawu Baraje have shunned an earlier ‘truce meeting’ with Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s President by insisting that until a larger part of the group returns from their Hajj operations to Mecca and demanding the resignation of Bamanga Tukur, National Chairman of PDP in Wadata House.
‘Tukur Must Resign Now’, G-7 Govs tell Jonathan
In a strong worded letter to Naija Standard, Baraje led-factional PDP has directed the remaining G7 governors who are yet to embark on Haji in Mecca who include Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, Alhaji Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and Alhaji Kwankwanso of Kano State to earlier President Goodluck Jonathan by 9am on 7thOctober, 2013 in Abuja to formally obtain permission from Mr. President to shift the meeting date to a more convenient date pending the return of all their leaders from Haji operation.
The spokesman to the breakaway PDP Eze Chukwuemeka Eze made this known in a short online statement on the night of 6th October, 2013 saying, “Shifting the meeting to morning period is to allow the mentioned Governors apart from Gov Amaechi to travel to Mecca later in the day of 7th October, 2013 for the Haji operation”
The New PDP noted that the latest was taken because of the plea by President
Jonathan and the respect they have for his office.
‘Tukur Must Resign’-New PDP
In the meantime, Baraje-led PDP has demanded for the immediate resignation of Tukur since he is not a registered and card-carrying member of the party and has no business being its National Chairman.
The splinter PDP noted that Tukur was expelled from the PDP in 2006 with nine others following disciplinary action taken against them for anti-party activities and since then, he has not officially returned to the party.
Eze unedited statements read: “All the records at our disposal show that Tukur has not followed due process for his readmission into the party. He neither apply for, nor obtained the requisite waiver by the National Executive Committee of the party before offering himself for election into the office of National Chairman in 2012. This makes his membership incurably defective and his emergence as PDP’s National Chairman null and void and of no effect whatsoever since he is the product of a flawed process.
“The actions he has taken as the Chairman of PDP since his purported election in March 2012, including the illegal, contentious convention of August, 2013 are null and void and of no
effect”.
Rest of the statement reads:
“Reliable information reaching us from the PDP National Secretariat indicates that Tukur is desperately seeking a way out of his predicament and has set about falsifying party records with regard to revalidating his membership through the back door. We wish to put him on notice that this is criminal and we hope he understands the consequences of his actions.
“In this regard, Tukur’s continued occupation of the Office of PDP National Chairman is clearly fraudulent, illegal and unconstitutional. We hereby urge Tukur to tow the path of honour and throw in the towel. This is the best option open to him. However, since one man cannot
hold the party and the entire nation hostage, should he fail to heed our advice, we would have no other option than to appeal to both the Presidency and the PDP leadership to ease him of the party in the most diplomatic way to avoid hurting him so much considering his age, zeal and commitment to serve the party by offering a Ministerial post to him. This is a good opportunity for the Presidency to demonstrate if it is serious about restoring peace and unity to the party.
“We hereby formally suggest the immediate recall of Alhaji Abubakar Kawu, who erroneously handed over to Tukur as the National Chairman of PDP, thinking he was a member of the party. This will enable Alhaji Kawu to organise a proper, unified convention that will usher in a
duly elected National Working Committee of the party as early as possible to enable us face the business of positioning PDP as the ruling party come 2015.
“It will also pave the way to restore PDP’s past glory based on the visions of the founding fathers of the party. “A word is enough for the wise”.
