PDP: A jolt from the North

What do five Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors from the North hope to achieve by constituting themselves into a ‘consulting group’ and challenging the leadership of the party and the Presidency at a time they should be working as a team to move the party forward ahead of the 2015 elections? The action of the governors has, indeed, rocked the boat of the ruling party.
By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North

It’s a bump that nobody expected to erupt so soon. But it descended like a volcano on the landscape all the same.  The torrents flowing from the ill-feelings of the men have tended to disfigure the political landscape, which has been under the firm grip of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP., for the past 14 years.

There’s irony in the emerging scenario: Five PDP governors, who had hitherto been celebrated as the beautiful brides of the party,  staged a ‘coup’ at a time they were all expected to fall in line and mime the mantra of the ‘biggest party in Africa’ to douse rising discontent among the members, who appear to have grown bigger than the ‘’umbrella”.

[caption id="attachment_406226" align="alignnone" width="412"] Lamido, Wammako, Nyako, Kwankwaso and Aliyu[/caption]

Unlike the claim of unanimity of strength of the past, which they flaunted to ward off the opposition parties, the aggrieved five seem to be united in their battle against what they consider as injustice perpetrated by the leadership of the party against them.

Their audacity flows from the fact that they are serving out their second term and may not be desperately looking out for something more. Apart from Governor Sule Lamido (Jigawa), who is said to be nursing presidential ambition, Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) may just be trying to prove a point to the leadership of the PDP and the Aso Rock Villa that they have borne enough of their ‘dirty politics’.

While Nyako has been stripped of the party’s structure in a state he has administered for over six years by the Abuja forces loyal to the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, and President Goodluck Jonathan, Wamakko and Aliyu had a turbulent relationship with the Presidency and the party leadership.

After wielding the big stick against the Sokoto governor for allegedly ‘disrespecting’ his Akwa Ibom State counterpart, Chief Godswill Akpabio, who doubles as the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Wamakko spurned several attempts by the powers-that-be to make him recant his  verbal remarks about the ‘uncommon transformation’ governor of Akwa Ibom State and a core loyalist of Jonathan.

He got a warning sign from the party which suspended him. But angry supporters of the governor raised the alarm and threatened to dump the PDP  if the clampdown on the man was not lifted.

The gaffe

When it dawned on the party leaders that they had committed a gaffe by axing Wamakko while the ripples over the suspension of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State was still generating ripples, they recalled the governor of the Caliphate. The party cited the intervention of Akpabio, who ‘pleaded’ for Wamakko’s pardon, as the reason for his recall. But the Sokoto governor appears unimpressed by the afterthought of the PDP leaders to bring him back to the party’s fold without first addressing the fundamental cause of his gripe.

Wamakko is yet to make any avowal either applauding the leadership for his recall or vilifying those responsible for his suspension. The recalcitrance by the governor seems to have left those who wanted his recall to be seen as an act of benevolence tongue-tied and somewhat frustrated.

But the real trouble lies in the realisation that rather than pushing him towards reconciling with his traducers, Wammako is bent on taking a pound of flesh from them by aligning forces with those within and outside the PDP, who share his political thinking.

Not even his party men can decipher his next game plan, a situation that has now put him at loggerheads with the PDP and also put paid to any genuine peace move. The disappointment of Abuja with Wamakko stems from the fact that until the party moved against him, he was among those the PDP frequently hailed as having the magic wand to win elections for it in the North-west, after he secured two straight victories for the party in 2007 and 2011.

The first victory though remains shrouded in controversy, a subject of litigation and has truncated the career of the former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami. In effect, the 2007 ‘victory’ of Wamakko in Sokoto has produced its victor and victims.

The PDP, which controls 23 of the 36 states, has proved that it is not in a hurry to let go the governance of the country and does not pretend that it can stomach any voice of dissent, especially from its belly. That is why Aliyu, who is also the Chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum, NSGF, may pay a price for trying to prove that he is not only stubborn but also outspoken.

One term deal

It is not likely that the forces within the PDP will forgive him for his audacity in broaching the controversy that President Jonathan signed a deal with some northern governors and political stakeholders to do just a term and hand over to the North in 2015. Although the Presidency has continued to skip any discussion on the rumoured Jonathan’s second term bid, Aliyu’s temerity in challenging him over the matter will not go unreplied by the forces loyal to the Presidency.

The reason is not far-fetched: The governor’s expose has not only embarrassed the Presidency but has also triggered a barrage of negative reactions against the President and fuelled opposition against his suspected second term bid.

But the Niger governor bulges not, insisting he had to speak the truth no matter whose ox is gored. The system not only frowns at that ‘betrayal’ by a man considered as a member of the inner caucus but also sees the governor as a pawn being raised by some political elements to foment avoidable political crisis.

He is even lucky that the forces have not confronted him on the scale of the treatment meted out to his Rivers counterpart, Amaechi, who they voted for on May 24, 2013 as the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF.

While it is difficult to understand how Kwankwaso, the Kano governor, boxed himself into the bad book of the PDP and the Presidency, Lamido’s rumoured presidential ambition is the main cause of his crisis with the Presidency and  party loyalists.

Game plan

And, just as Jonathan has not officially made his ambition known, the Jigawa governor is keeping his game plan close to his chest. So far, it is unlikely that the Presidency and its minders will just stand and watch anyone considered a threat or even a potential one to the return bid by Jonathan come 2015.

That is why it has been fighting to keep Amaechi at bay over the NGF chairmanship but failed. After the defeat at the NGF polls, the Presidency and the PDP suspended the Rivers governor and attempted to change the leadership of the state House of Assembly preparatory to sacking the governor from his seat.

Meanwhile, the northern governors have taken their battle against the Presidency and the PDP to different parts of the country. After meeting with Amaechi in Port Harcourt in a show of solidarity with him, the quintuplet approached General Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar and reported their frustration in the PDP to the two former Nigerian leaders.

Robbing the North

Although the details of their discussions have not been made public, it was understood that their complaint centred around the purported attempt by Jonathan to jettison the agreement to run for one term, thereby robbing the North of the opportunity to take over the Presidency in 2015.

While that remained the subject of their meeting, the governors came out in the open to say that they merely went to the Hilltop Mansion to ‘consult’ with the former leaders.  “We have held consultations with former heads of states on the need for them and other major stakeholders to save the party from dying”, they said.

“We will continue to make our efforts to save the party. But if our efforts do not work, we have no alternative than to fold our arms, and see PDP die and we help in burying it.”  The Presidency has not taken the governors’ confrontation lightly especially given the warm welcome granted them by  IBB and Abubakar in Minna.

IBB even added more trouble for the governors when he described them as real patriots in search of genuine answers to the nation’s crises.

“I just want to commend the governors and some of their colleagues. I am very impressed because they see the problems of this country as their problems and they have taken the right steps to make sure that they consult widely in trying to find solutions to some of the nagging problems. It shows they are real patriots and I am very happy with them,” IBB said while receiving the governors in his palatial home in the Niger State capital.

‘Never truly PDP govs’

The Presidency does not believe that the governors visit to the former heads of state and Amaechi was for mere consultation and altruistic purposes. The Political Adviser to President Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, described the five governors as agents of the opposition in the PDP. Gulak also said that two of the governors-Wamakko and Nyako - were never truly PDP governors.

Describing them as All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP, governors, who were admitted to the PDP with open arms, the presidential adviser lamented their lack of respect for the President and the PDP leadership, which gave them the platform to run for office. He accused the governors of trying to instigate the people against Jonathan  with the aim of getting him out of office so that one of them would take over.

“The grandstanding of the five governors is nothing but a ploy to chase out President Jonathan so that one of them can take over. But I can assure you that their agenda has already failed since the Nigerian people are aware that they have nothing to offer the nation,” Gulak said.

“They (the five governors) cannot bury PDP, as the party is above them.

“Their agenda is not to bury PDP but to get President Goodluck Jonathan out, but they will certainly fail. I can assure you that all those in that group and sharing their agenda will also fail woefully, as Nigerians are wiser.”

The presidential aide insisted that the President never signed any agreement with any governor or group to do one a term and challenged those who claimed to have been part of the deal to produce the minutes of any such meeting where the pact was made or shut up forever.

“If there was any such agreement, I would have been part of the process given my position as the SA Political to the President”.

‘Jonathan unhappy’

Although Gulak admitted that Jonathan was unhappy over the action of the governors and the seeming implosion within the party, he is said to be optimistic that the party was solid and capable of surmounting its challenges ahead of the 2015 polls.

The only worry of the President, according to the aide, is the wrong signals and image problems the PDP crisis was sending to the international community at a time Nigeria was battling to ward off its corruption toga.

Many have predicted that the PDP, which has been running the affairs of Nigeria since the return to popular democracy in 1999, may be on its way to doom given the high level of intrigues and manipulations that has, of recent, attended its ranks.

The irony of the emerging drama is that while the five governors, who are all from the North, may be seen as pursuing personal interests, they may actually be spearheading a holistic agenda of the region, which has not hidden its disdain for being shut out of power for over a decade.

Whether they are pursuing a personal agenda or group interests, events in the next few months leading to next year, when Jonathan is likely to formally announce his second term bid and possibly be adopted as the sole candidate of the PDP, would clear any doubt as to where the governors and their teeming supporters would be heading in 2015.

When the chips are down, Jonathan and his loyalists are sure to carry the day or kiss the dust. But in reality, what the governors have succeeded in doing is a shot fired from the least expected quarters that is set to jolt the overstretched ‘umbrella’ as the gathering political storm reaches its crescendo.

Five Northern Govs to Jonathan: 'Our condition for peace'

By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North, Levinus Nwabughiogu

The five northern governors: Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), and Muritala Nyako (Adamawa), critical of the purported move by President Goodluck Jonathan to seek re-election in 2015, yesterday met with the President at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

The meeting, described by sources as private, lasted several hours.

Details of what was discussed at the parley were unclear at press time, although it was learnt that it was not unconnected with the crisis plaguing their party – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that the five governors insisted on the removal of the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, as their condition to be at peace with the party and the Presidency.

The President and the governors held the crucial talks just as sources said the Presidency was banking on the seeming popularity of recently freed ex-Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, in his home region of the North to initiate subtle moves to recruit him into Jonathan’s re-election  campaign.

The sources said case was also being made for a  role for the ex-CSO in the Jonathan government.

The overture to Al-Mustapha by the pro-Jonathan elements was, however, causing a row among some northern  leaders.

Appeasement

Sunday Vanguard sources said the Aso Rock meeting with the five northern governors was initiated by the President to enable him  listen to their grievances with a view to appeasing them and preventing them from joining the opposition.
The crucial meeting, said to have started around noon, was held under closed doors and the outcome not made known to journalists.

During the meeting, Jonathan was said to have pleaded with the governors to sheath their sword and promised to personally look into the sources of their anger.

[caption id="attachment_406281" align="alignnone" width="412"] Wammako, Aliyu, Lamido, Kwankwaso and Nyako[/caption]

Jonathan reportedly assured the governors that he was aware of their face-off with some influential people close to him and the PDP and was poised to address them in the interest of the party and the country.

But the governors allegedly gave the President the condition under which they would support him and the PDP in the 2015 contest, which is that he must sack the PDP National Chairman, Tukur, with immediate effect.
The governors, according to the sources, said Tukur was their major headache and  they did not see how they could continue to work with him.

They allegedly insisted that they would never have anything to do with the PDP as long as Tukur continued to preside over it’s affairs.

Dictatorship

One of the sources said,”The clear message delivered to the President was that the National Chairman of the PDP, Bamanga Tukur, must be sacked urgently.

”The governors made it clear to Mr. President that the leadership of Tukur has brought an era of dictatorship to the party and alienated the major stakeholders, leaving those who do not have the interest of the party to hold sway.

”It is either the President sacks him to appease the governors and others who are with them or keeps the Chairman and loses them”.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that the governors had earlier met for 45 minutes at the Sokoto State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro to take a common position on what to discuss with Jonathan.

After the  meeting, they proceeded to the Villa at about noon.
The governors had, last week, expressed anger with the Presidency and the PDP  leadership over the way things were going in the party and the country.

They met with three former heads of state - Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar – in Abeokuta, Ogun State and Minna, Niger State, and complained to them about how they were being alienated and maltreated by the Presidency and the PDP despite their enormous contributions to the party. Although the outcome of their deliberations with the former leaders was not made public, IBB lauded the five governors and described them as ‘real patriots’.

Lamido is said to have been singled out by the Presidency for isolation for daring to declare to contest against Jonathan in 2015 while Aliyu is seen as being penalised for saying that Jonathan signed a deal with northern governors to run for only a term.
Nyako   is being castigated and kept at bay for trying to contest the control of PDP structures of Adamawa  with Tukur.

The Political Adviser to the President, Ahmed Gulak, described the five governors as agents of the opposition and warned them to stop heating up the polity.

Wooing Al-Mustapha

Meanwhile, banking on the seeming popularity of  Al-Mustapha,  especially in his home region of the North, the Presidency  was said to have  initiated subtle moves to recruit him into the re-election campaign of  Jonathan.
Sunday Vanguard investigations revealed that political strategists have, however, cautioned the President not to be directly involved in the effort to woo the former CSO to the late Abacha  to his side but to use sundry northern and southern groups to do the job.

It was learnt that, based on a well-coordinated strategy to draw the Abacha era  strong man into the Jonathan’s campaign, several northern groups, which had hitherto voiced opposition to the re-election of Jonathan in 2015, had been approached by top government officials and asked to work with Al-Mustapha, who is now seen as a hero in the region.

As part of the innocuous campaign, the erstwhile CSO is said to have been encouraged to meet with top government officials in the country, particularly governors, ministers and leaders of ethnic groups, whose support is considered relevant to the attainment of the set political target in the 2015 presidential poll. The government, it was learnt, has facilitated the meetings of  Al-Mustapha  with top government officials in the North and the military high command in Abuja with a view to quickening his return to the army and promotion.

A military source said that the former CSO was scheduled to meet with the Chief of  the Army Staff on Friday but did not say whether the two men actually met and what transpired between them. The plan, according to a source, is to return to the army, retire him full benefits and give him a  role in the government of Jonathan.

The kite

Apparently acting the script, the Presidency is reported to have made the first move to test the water by mobilising some northern groups to fly the kite that it was the active support of key government officials that enabled the former CSO to regain his freedom.
As a first step, former Abacha Minister of Education, Dauda Birmah, on Friday, led some groups to the National Chairman of the PDP, Bamanga Tukur, in Abuja and adopted Jonathan as their choice for the Presidency in 2015.

The groups said that they were grateful to the Presidency for ensuring the release of the former CSO from prison after 15 years, adding that they were convinced that the release would not have been possible without the support of the President and the PDP Chairman.

Among the groups that went with Birmah to see Tukur were the Northern Elders Forum, North/ South New Nigeria and Fresh Air Continuity Group.

Coincidentally, while the Birmah-led groups were meeting with Tukur, some other groups opposed to the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) issued a strong statement in Abuja condemning any attempt by some northern leaders to work against the return of Jonathan in 2015.

Another group, believed to have been recruited into the 2015 campaign-Coalition of Concerned Northern Youths, CNY- carpeted NEF  for daring to insist that power must return to the region in 2015, asking the protagonists to apologise over their failure in the past.

A top northern politician, who pleaded anonymity, supported a role for  Al-Mustapha  in the Jonathan  government, saying the involvement of the former CSO could bring the current security challenge in the North to an end.
The politician said that he was aware of the clout  Al-Mustapha has among northern youths and how he could use same to help the administration to overcome the crisis in the North.

‘North never united in elections’

But the spokesman for the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Anthony Sani, said that it was wrong for anybody or group in the North to insist that the area should vote for a particular candidate in any election, arguing that the region has never been united in elections.

He cited the case of President Shehu Shagari contesting against Mallam  Aminu Kano in the 1979 elections and winning against all calculations of the North.

Sani said, “I’ve never seen the North united politically and don’t even see the basis of such unity.  ”We don’t want the North to be divided along political lines. What I know is that we must work together for the progress of Nigeria because neither all the votes of the North alone nor that of the South alone can make Jonathan to win the next election”.

The ACF spokesperson  said the North supported  Al-Mustapha’s  release because of the monumental injustice of his incarceration for about 15 years.

Word of caution for Abacha’s CSO

The Secretary General of  NEF, Prof Ango Abdullahi, took a swipe at Birmah, saying that he was speaking for himself and not the North as he was not mandated to do so.

Abdullahi, a former VC of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, told Sunday Vanguard that while the former minister was entitled to his opinion as a northerner and Nigerian, he should avoid the temptation of acting any role not assigned him by the North.

The NEF scribe also warned Al-Mustapha to be wary of the carrots being dangled before him by  government and individuals so as not to burn his fingers and run into avoidable disaster.

”Al-Mustapha should be careful so as not to be used as a pawn by the political predators in the land and dumped at the end of the day. If I were him, I would have been very prayerful to God and take time to acquaint myself with issues in the country after 15 years of isolation,” Abdullahi said. ”It is up to him to accept that his popularity is principally borne by the sympathy that Nigerians have for him for being unduly incarcerated”.

A top government official in Kano also warned the former Abacha CSO not to mistake the sympathy of Nigerians over his unjust imprisonment for political popularity.

”Al-Mustspha does not have what it takes to be a politician and those who are goading him to replace some government officials should watch out for the consequence,” the official said.
Although the Presidency has not reacted to the development, the PDP National Chairman, Tukur, on Friday, asked  northern groups to stand solidly behind Jonathan to develop the country.
Tukur said,”Don’t  be intimidated by anybody in speaking out your mind because Nigeria is your only country. It is a thing of joy for us that you have come to openly identify with the solid achievements of President Jonathan when others in the North are giving the erroneous impression that all is not well.”