Barely 13 days to the rescheduled meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and seven aggrieved governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), otherwise known as the G-7, the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has taken a swipe at the governors and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.
While Tukur chided Tambuwal for his comment that the ruling party would find it difficult to win the 2015 general elections without the G-7 governors who had gone to form another faction of the party, the governors came under the national chairman’s jab for being selfish politicians who want to use the crisis to achieve what they want.
Tukur also found offensive the speaker’s opinion that he (Tukur) should be persuaded to resign as national chairman of the PDP.
Tukur reacted to Tambuwal’s comment in the United States, the same country where the speaker spoke two weeks ago.
Amidst Tukur’s reaction were indications that President Jonathan is billed to meet with the leadership of the National Assembly before the October 7 meeting.
The speaker had, penultimate week, said that it would be hard for the ruling party to record any success in the forthcoming 2015 general elections in the country if its leadership failed to find a way of bringing back the seven state governors that broke away at the party’s mini-convention last month.
Tambuwal, who was addressing the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, stated that it had been one problem after the other in the PDP since Tukur’s assumption of office as the party’s national chairman.
But the embattled chairman told LEADERSHIP in New York yesterday that the comment from Tambuwal was wrong, adding that he was sure that his party would have an edge over the opposition without the G-7 governors.
Vowing that he would not be distracted by the comments from the speaker, Tukur, who is in the US for his annual African Business Roundtable, said that he (Tambuwal) should be asked what he (Tukur) had done wrong to be persuaded to resign. “I want to say it to all Nigerians that I am not a problem to my party. Yes, I am not a problem to PDP, but if Tambuwal thinks that I am a problem to our great party, ask him to tell me what I have done wrong to warrant his comments about me. I challenge him to come out openly and mention one single thing that I have done to show that I am the problem that will make the party fail in 2015,” he said. “I am not going to resign because I was elected and given the mandate as national chairman of our great party by our members. I am not going to bother myself about the stupid calls for my resignation. The mandate that I have now is to reconcile our people; my mandate is to take our party to greater height; my mandate is also to build Nigeria.”
On the issue of factions in the party, Tukur said that there was nothing like factional PDP, as only one PDP is recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian citizens. He added that any other group that called itself PDP was committing a criminal offence.
On the demand of the G-7 governors are making as solutions to the crisis rocking the ruling party, Tukur said that such demand is selfish and is not in the good interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.
He said, “What issues have the G-7 governors raised and why are they telling the president to ask the EFCC not to investigate them again? Anybody that has issues with the EFCC should be investigated, and nobody should try to cover his/her evil deeds under the pretence of giving any conditions for making peace in the party. Whoever that has any corruption case among them should allow the security agents do their job by doing proper investigations.
“They are also saying that my resignation is one of the factors that can bring peace back into the party, but I stand to reject that. My resignation should not be the demand of the seven aggrieved governors.”
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