BUHARI, TINUBU ARE NOT DEMOCRATS – PDP The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has told the leader of Congress for Progressive Change, Maj.- Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to stop parading themselves as saints and democrats. It said it had taken stock of the activities of the two men and came to the conclusion that they were bitter because they knew that “they will lose the 2015 general elections despite the so-called merger of their parties which is built on deceit, corruption and falsehood and as such want to invent excuses” ahead of time. PDP Acting National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Tony Okeke, in a statement in Abuja said, “Buhari and Tinubu, who are well-known despots, lack the moral justification to pontificate on democracy, especially when all their actions are dictatorial.” But the ACN, through its spokesperson, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, berated the PDP, saying its leadership lacked knowledge on happenings in the party. PRESIDENT RUNNING A ‘ONE-MAN SHOW’ IN PDP – AMAECHI Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of turning the Peoples Democratic Party into a “one-man show” and of condoning “impunity and authoritarianism” in an effort to ensure re-election in 2015. Amaechi, in an interview he granted the Financial Times of London, added that the President and his wife, Patience, were bent on removing him from office. He traced his travails to a perceived fear in the Presidency that whoever was in charge of the Nigeria Governor’s Forum had the capacity to influence the presidential election in 2015. Mohammed asked the PDP leadership to look inward in order to be able to realise that there were works to be done in-house before it could accuse others of inaction or dictatorship. In a report posted by FT on Sunday, he alleged that “what has happened has been engineered to the point where the President and his wife are trying to remove me from office.” 2015: PDP GOVS GANG-UP WORRIES JONATHAN • GOVS MAY SEEK TUKUR’S REMOVAL AT PARTY’S CONVENTION The gang-up by some Peoples Democratic Party governors against President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term ambition is believed to be unsettling the President The PUNCH gathered on Sunday that the reality that he might not win the PDP ticket for the 2015 poll made him to raise a team of three governors to meet with former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja on Thursday. The governors, who met with Obasanjo, are Governor Godwill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom Sate; Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta State) and Liyel Imoke (Cross River State). The meeting, which was held at the Hilton Hotel, first had the duo of Uduaghan and Imoke in attendance. Both of them were with the former President for about one and half hours before they left. It was after then that Akpabio, who also chairs the PDP Governors’ Forum, came and also had a discussion with Obasanjo. Jonathan, it was gathered, was worried about the openness with which the PDP governors talked about 2015 and referred to him as unelectable. At least, about three governors have openly declared that the President must honour his one- term agreement with them. Apart from this, they also said that winning the primary of the PDP would not be a guarantee that the President would win the presidential election. The President is also said to be worried about the lack of cooperation among PDP governors and how the last chairmanship election of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum had polarised the party. Presidential sources said on Sunday that Jonathan was also worried about lack of communication between him and Obasanjo, a development considered as being dangerous to his 2015 ambition. HAWKER, THREE OTHERS KILLED IN LAGOS BUILDING COLLAPSE •HOUSE MARKED FOR DEMOLITION – GOVT Four persons, including a 15-year-old hawker identified only as Sukurah, lost their lives on Sunday after a two-storey building under construction, collapsed in Surulere, Lagos State. Our correspondent, who visited the building on Ishaga Street, learnt that the building collapsed around 10am during the early morning rain. PUNCH Metro also learnt that three people were rescued and were responding to treatment at different hospitals. A friend of the 15-year-old victim, Tobi, told PUNCH Metro that she had gone to the building to sell bread to labourers few minutes before the collapse.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 05:46:10 +0000
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