The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday passed up another opportunity to elect its new chairman in the same manner it failed in its attempt in December to name a consensus candidate from the dozen aspirants.
However, it made a bit of progress yesterday with the naming of Professor Jerry Gana as chairman of a special committee to appropriately realign membership of the BoT to ensure credibility and acceptability of the planned election.
Gana will chair the committee, which has as members Dr. Shettima Mustapha, Sen. Hope Uzodima, Sen. Stella Omu; Governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema; and Chief Bode George. It has three weeks to submit its report.
Presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, the meeting commenced at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa at about 8.30pm and lasted about three hours.
Briefing journalists after it ended, Nigerian High Commissioner to Canada, Chief Ojo Maduekewe and Secretary of the BoT, Senator Awalid Jibril restated the commitment of the party to free and fair elections.
According to Maduekewe, the board unanimously agreed that the BoT secretary should continue in office. He used the opportunity to disclaim reports of discord in the NWC.
“We reaffirm the unity and solidarity of national leadership of the party. We are on top of any situation either at national or state leadership of our party,” he said. “The party is committed to supporting Mr. President on the implementation of the transformation agenda.”
He equally debunked the rumour that the party’s governors are on a mission to remove Bamanga Tukur as national chairman.
“The governors are not moving against the PDP national chairman and so there is no truth in the report,” he stated. “The issue of Adamawa State has received attention, and a team of eminent elders, which includes the Vice President Namadi Sambo and Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal have been raised to resolve the issue. There is nothing to that effect to remove the party’s chairman.” Maduekwe further explained that although all party men who had shown interest in the BoT chairmanship are eminent and duly qualified Nigerians, the meeting did not discuss their identities, rather the modalities for the election.
“There is no deadlock, but when you are in a party like PDP that has been in power since 1999 without any serious opposition, you have to reinvent yourself to remain in contention. “The constitution is clear on those who are permanent members, because once you have held positions both in government and the party, it makes you a permanent member. The election takes place once every five years. There was no election tonight and no candidate was endorsed.”
At least 12 people are known to be eyeing the PDP BoT chairmanship. They are Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Dr. Ken Nnamani, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, Dr. Amadu Ali, Chief Tony Aneni, Chief Emmanuel Iwuayanwu and Chief Don Etibet.
Others are Senator Bode Olayinka, Chief Yekeen Adeojo, Senator Onyeabor Obi, Chief Harry Akande and Chief Shuaibu Oyedo.
In a related development, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party on Tuesday recanted itself on its earlier sack of the Adamawa State Executive Committee, recalling them after caving in to pressure from the party’s governors.
It was a face-saving move for the NWC, which the governors were threatening to sack and replace with a caretaker committee if the sacked executives were not reinstated.
The recall of the committee also rests the supremacy battle between party chairman, Alhaji Bamanga and Governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, which formally began in October 2012 when the NWC dissolved the Adamawa State party executive, chaired by Alhaji Umaru Kugama, replacing it with a nine-man caretaker committee headed by Amb. Umar Damagun.
Dr. Sam Jaja, the deputy national chairman of PDP announced the change on Tuesday, saying recent congresses in the state are, therefore, null and void. Missing at the briefing was Tukur, who claimed to be preparing for the meeting of the Board of Trustees (BoT), which still eventually failed to produce the much-expected new chairman.
“Yesterday January 8, 2013, members of the NWC, acting under Article 29(3) and with 10 members present out of 12, held an emergency NWC on this burning subject,” Jaja said at the briefing.
“The emergency NWC decided to announce the following: The NWC in its 325th meeting of Wednesday, December 12, 2012 had rescinded the dissolution of the PDP Adamawa State executive.
“The NWC had earlier dissolved the Adamawa State Executive under Article 29(2) (b), wherein we acted on behalf of Article 31(2)(e) powers of the NEC. But it is instructive to note that the ward and local government executives of Adamawa State were never dissolved.
“At its 314th meeting of August 29, 2012, the NWC had upheld the March 2012 ward and local government executives except for one LGA which was later ratified. The NWC is, therefore, surprised, shocked and embarrassed to read in the newspapers of the purported ward, local government and state congresses said to be ongoing in Adamawa State.”
Even though the national secretariat traditionally conducts PDP congresses, Jaja detached the NWC from the congresses, saying:
“For the records, the National Working Committee hereby dissociates the party leadership from the purported congresses, which were neither authorised by the NWC nor monitored or supervised by the National Secretariat. Based upon the above therefore, the NWC hereby, declares the purported congresses null, void and of no effect whatsoever.
“Consequently, we hereby declare that the only state executive committee constitutionally recognised by this party is the Mijinyawa Kugama executive lawfully elected in March 2012 and endorsed by the National Convention.”
In dissolving the executive last year, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh had announced that its members “flagrantly disregarded and shown serial disobedience to the decisions of NWC.”
He accused the dissolved exco of conducting illegal local government elections and submitting a list of candidates to the Adamawa State Independent National Electoral Commission without obtaining clearance from the NWC.
The caretaker committee which was chaired by Alhaji Umar Damagun with Emmanuel Tsamdu as the secretary, has others as members, Mr. Eli Gamaliel; Mr Dahiru Shehu; Alhaji Sabo Mohammed; Mrs Grace Mamba; Mrs. Altine Inuwa; Adamu Wazirin Paka; and Mr. Samuel Zadok.
Governor Nyako then began moves to placate the national secretariat in Maitama, Abuja but he was not listened to. Governors, led by Governor of Rivers State and Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Rotimi Amaechi then joined Nyako in seeking a reversal of the sack and after they were rebuffed, they decided to handle it the tough way.
