SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
Former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar
The seven aggrieved governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party may be summoned to appear before the disciplinary committee of the party if they fail to attend the October 7 meeting with some selected leaders of the party, including President Goodluck Jonathan.
The rebel governors, party leaders and the President had met on September 15, where they agreed to keep discussing and that parties in the dispute should stop further inflammatory statements on the areas of disagreement.
Governors in the New PDP, who were at the meeting were Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Rabiu Kwankwanso(Kano), Murtala Nyako(Adamawa), Sule Lamido(Jigawa), Abdulfatah Ahmed(Kwara) and Babangida Aliyu(Niger).
The Governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko, was the only member of G-7 not at the meeting.
Those who came from the Bamanga Tukur camp were Liyel Imoke(Cross River), Godswill Akpabio(Akwa Ibom) and Idris Wada(Kogi).
President Jonathan, his deputy, Namadi Sambo and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, were also at the meeting.
Apart from the governors, others in their group who have formed the New PDP are a former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar and some former governors like Bukola Saraki(Kwara), Shaba Lafiagi (Kwara) and Abdulahhi Adamu (Nasarawa).
It was gathered that if the governors remained adamant and no agreement was reached after the October 7 meeting, the party might summon the governors and their backers to appear before the disciplinary committee.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, had said that the party was not afraid of wielding the big stick.
Metuh, during a question and answer session after his press briefing in Abuja on Friday had said, “We have seriously taken into account steps taken as well as the gravity of utterances credited to our brothers, especially in the wake of our last reconciliation meeting.
“We therefore wish to state for the avoidance of doubt that the fact that our leaders have chosen the path of caution and decorum, does not in any way suggest that we are afraid of the consequences of doing otherwise.
“We have only applied wisdom that, yes, we have the strength of a lion but better, when not applied needlessly”.
A reliable source in the PDP, said on Monday that the October 7 meeting might be the last time for the aggrieved members of the party to make up with the party’s hierarchy.
The source, who spoke with select journalists in Abuja on Monday said, “Everybody knows that there is no faction within the party. All these so- called crises are driven by the 2015 contest.
“Even, when they met with the President, none of them could pinpoint one tangible area of grievance and the party cannot go ahead like this. There must be discipline and a bad precedent should not be allowed. We cannot go on like this. If these people want to go, let them go.”
However, the National Publicity Secretary of the Baraje faction of the party, Chief Chukwuemeka Eze, told our correspondent on the telephone that his group would wait for Tukur and his men to take the action.
He, however, said that it would be wrong for the action to be taken, wondering how the PDP would want to discipline those considered not to be part of it.
He said, “We won’t say anything until when that happens. We will wait for them to carry out the action before we strike.
“But, who will they summon? Which party would do that? Let us see how that would be done.”
Meanwhile, there are also indications that the party may remove Dr. Umaru Dikko as the chairman of its Disciplinary Committee.
Dikko, who was a former Minister of Transport in the Second Republic, is said to be hospitalised in a London hospital.
The committee was constituted on July 29, but the absence of Dikko in the country due to ill health, has made it impossible for the committee to be inaugurated.
Apart from Dikko, others named as members of the committee are Amalete. J. Turner(Deputy Chairman), Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Shuaib Oyedokun, Nana Kadiri, Hussaini Diraki and Senator Emmanuel Agboti.
It was however not clear if the Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Uche Secondus, would be allowed to chair the committee.
Until now, occupiers of the office were usually allowed to head the committee.
But both Secondus and Turner are from the same geo-political zone, the South-South.
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