The
peace process initiated by a committee of elders of the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party can safely be said to be either on life support or
dead.
This followed Monday’s decision by the
Bamanga Tukur-led faction of the party to call the bluff of the Abubakar
Baraje-led group by placing the group’s leading figures on suspension.
In the largely unexpected and
unprecedented move, Tukur announced the suspension of the factional
Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Baraje and its Secretary Prince Olagunsoye
Oyinlola, its deputy National Chairman, Sam Sam Jaja and Ambassador
Kazaure who are considered pivotal to the operations of the group of
aggrieved members.
Before Monday’s decision, the Tukur-led
PDP had secured a court judgment declaring the Baraje-led faction of the
party an illegal entity.
The party’s National Publicity
Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, had enjoined the security services to
treat any member of the faction parading himself/ herself as a parallel
official of the party as a criminal.
This happened before an Appeal Court in
Abuja delivered a judgment in a suit filed by Oyinlola challenging his
ouster as the party’s National Secretary.
Most political analysts failed to see
the suspension of Baraje, Oyinlola and others coming largely because an
Abuja Court of Appeal on Thursday last week reinstated Oyinlola as the
party’s National Secretary.
Emboldened by this court decision, the
aggrieved members of the party under the aegis of nPDP continued to
function as a faction of the PDP.
Six out of the seven aggrieved PDP
governors and the leadership of the outlawed nPDP met in Abuja, on
Sunday night to deliberate on the Oyinlola’s victory which was
considered a collective victory and chart a new course for their
struggle.
One of the decisions reached after more
than five hours of deliberations was a call for the immediate
implementation of the court judgment reinstating Oyinlola.
Little did they know that an earlier
claim by Chief Olisa Metuh that the party was yet to receive a copy of
the said court judgment or any court order for Oyinlola’s reinstatement
was a prelude to the suspension of some of their key members.
Governor Rotimi Ameachi of Rivers State is still serving out his indefinite suspension from the party.
Monday’s suspension order obviously took
members of the aggrieved faction of the party off guard. Its National
Publicity Secretary, Chief Chukwuemeka Eze said, “You see, the problem
we are having with Tukur and his National Working Committee is that they
lack common understanding of the PDP constitution.
“This is an abuse of the judiciary and
the Nigeria constitution on fair hearing and most importantly, the PDP
constitution of 2009 as amended Article 21 section 9 which states:
‘Notwithstanding any other provision of this constitution relating to
discipline, no executive committee at any level except NEC shall
entertain any question of discipline as may relate or concern…”
Apart from those just suspended, six
aggrieved governors on the party platform namely: Sule Lamido (Jigawa),
Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano),
Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) have continued to
lead the revolt against Tukur’s leadership style.
They argue that Tukur’s style of administration has destroyed the cohesion the party once enjoyed.
It may be recalled that The PUNCH had in its Friday, November 8 edition exclusively reported that the party’s peace moves had hit a dead end.
The story entitled: “PDP peace moves hit
a dead end”, which was sourced from a reliable source in the Presidency
predicted correctly that the President was no longer favourably
disposed to further discussions with the aggrieved governors and members
of the faction.
It is now clear that the Tukur-led
executive of the PDP, which still enjoys the support of the President,
has opted to go for broke. It is left for aggrieved members of the
party to prepare an appropriate response.
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