President Goodluck Jonathan may have now had enough of the crisis rocking his ruling party, Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, which has practically left it in shreds. It is believed that the continued stay in office of Bamanga Tukur as the National Chairman of the PDP will further spell doom to the party if urgent steps are not taken.
There have been calls by some aggrieved members of the PDP for the resignation of Tukur, but due to the National Chairman’s loyalty to the President, he (Tukur) has remained in office, while the vexed members of the party have continued rant in vain.
This led to the party being factionalised in August 2013 when seven PDP governors formed an arm of the party, along with Atiku Abubakar. Since then, the party has been going through tough times. It is believed that in a matter of days, the ruling party will lose its majority position in the House of Representatives to the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, due to massive defection of PDP members to the APC.
Last weekend, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, wrote a letter to Tukur, and copied Jonathan, indicating his intention to quit activities of the party. This move by Obasanjo unsettled leaders of the party.
Over the weekend, meetings were held by the party’s leadership. President Jonathan also met with Tukur to discuss the threatening issues at hand. Also on Saturday, Bode George returned to Nigeria from London to attend some party meetings.
Aproko247 was also at the Lagos airport to cover Bode’s arrival. From the situations at the airport, it was glaring that tensions were high and top members of PDP are running helter-skelter to see that matters are solved on time, especially between Obasanjo and Buruji Kashamu, the party’s South-West Zonal leader.
Latest information reaching us is that the President has informed Tukur to resign before the next National Executive Council, NEC, meeting, which holds on Thursday, January 16.
Recall that the meeting was postponed last week to this week due to some reasons.
Tukur is alleged to have held a NWC meeting at his Wuse 2 residence instead of the party’s Wadata Plaza headquarters in Abuja. This is one of the ‘many sins’ committed by Tukur and those who want him out by force are not shifting grounds.
Aproko247 has learnt that one of the matters to be discussed at Thursday’s NEC meeting is his continued stay in office. From all indications, President Jonathan’s request to Tukur may be a way to present him (Tukur) with a soft landing as most members of the NEC are not on his side. So, to avoid shame on Thursday, he has been presented with the resignation option by Jonathan.
We gathered that he might be left with no other option than to accept to resign.
Some of the NEC members are insisting that for the party to move forward and for peace returned to the ruling party, Tukur must leave office as the PDP National Chairman. President Jonathan is said to be worried that if issues are not quickly resolved, the PDP might lose power to the APC in 2015.
What Aproko247 cannot confirm at the moment is if the defected members of the PDP to the APC will return if Tukur eventually resigns. This was one of their requests for returning to the ‘Umbrella’ party.
