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.
PUNCH
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