PDP crisis: IBB, Ahmadu Ali offer peace deal As a prelude to last night’s meeting with stakeholders, President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday afternoon met behind closed-door with former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida and former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Colonel Ahmadu Ali (rtd). The meeting, which held at one of the guest houses (House 7) in the Presidential Villa, was away from the prying eyes of State House correspondents. Both men were said to have come into the Villa at about 1p.m. and left before 2p.m. apparently to consult ahead of the larger meeting. The meeting, which is clearly to find lasting solution to the lingering crisis in the party, was the first that Babangida will be attending. Daily Sun findings revealed that President Jonathan would be meeting with a larger group of stakeholders, including aggrieved members that formed the new PDP on August 31 as well as his loyalists. Daily Sun gathered that Babangida and Ali impressed it on Jonathan to ensure that peace returns to the PDP. They were said to have told him to consider the proposal by the party’s elders, as a way of ending the crisis. Recall that PDP elders, including ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, have met in an effort to find solution to the crisis, following the formation of a faction within the party. They had proposed the reinstatement of the state executives in Rivers and Adamawa PDP, brokering of peace in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, stoppage of operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and president’s declining to seek second term. It was gathered that Babangida and Ali asked the President to seriously consider the proposals, especially as it relates to Rivers and Adamawa PDP as well as NGF, as they believe that this would help in getting the aggrieved PDP governors to renounce the faction they formed. They promised to meet with the governors to also get them to make concession. Earlier, Governors of Benue, Gabriel Suswam, Delta’s Emmanuel Uduaghan and Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, visited the Villa. While Suswam took a different route out of the Villa, away from journalists, Akpabio and Uduaghan refused to comment on the outcome of their meeting with President Jonathan when approached to comment. Since the August 31 emergence of a splinter group in PDP, Jonathan had been holding several meetings with stakeholders, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who he met for about two hours, and then with four (Babangida Aliyu of Niger, Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa and Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara) of the seven aggrieved governors. Other governors in the G7 are Aliyu Wamkakko of Sokoto, Sule Lamido of Jigawa and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers. Others that form the factional PDP are former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Acting National Chairman of the PDP, Kawu Baraje, suspended National Secretary, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola and former National Deputy Chairman, Dr. Sam Sam Jaja. The splinter group is miffed by the way the National Chairman, Bamanga Tukur and the presidency have been running the PDP, excluding other critical stakeholders. President Jonathan had also met with 16 governors the same day he met and had lunch with Obasanjo. Obasanjo, as part of efforts to resolve the crisis, had met twice with the governors, but so far, the crisis seems far from being over
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 05:59:03 +0000
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