Guardian ‘Five northern govs didn’t ask for removal of Oduah, Alison-Madueke’ WEDNESDAY, 31 JULY 2013 00:00 FROM MADU ONUORAH, ADAMU ABUH (ABUJA) AND TUNJI OMOFOYE (OSOGBO) NEWS - NATIONAL • Court restrains PDP from appointing new scribe • Why we withdrew suit on convention, by litigants A PRESIDENCY source Wednesday gave an insight into the meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and five northern governors last Saturday, saying they did not request for the removal of the ministers of Aviation (Mrs. Stella Oduah) and Petroleum Resources (Mrs. Deziani Alison-Madueke), as a condition for peace within the polity and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). But the source confirmed that the governors pointedly asked Jonathan to consider removing the Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. The governors, Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe) and Kashim Shettima (Borno), met with Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Meanwhile, the crisis rocking the PDP has taken a fresh dimension as an Osun High Court sitting in Osogbo yesterday granted a motion ex-parte stopping the conduct of election to fill the vacant position of national secretary of the party at its planned mini-national convention. The order was consequent upon a suit filed by the ousted National Secretary of the party and former governor of the state, Olagunsoye Oyinlola. Justice Oyejide Falola granted the three prayers in the motion after listening to the submission of counsel to the applicant, Mr. Rilwan Okpanachi. Oyinlola had dragged the Osun State PDP Chairman, Alhaji Ganiyu Olaoluwa and the PDP national leadership before the court, concerning the plan by the National Working Committee of the party to hold a mini-national convention during which some of the vacant positions in NWC, including that of national secretary, which was last held in substantive capacity by the claimant, might be filled. Also joined as co-defendant in the suit is the chairman of the PDP mini-National Convention Committee, Prof. Jerry Gana. Okpanachi, in his argument, told the court that his client, whose election as PDP national secretary was nullified by the declaratory judgment of Justice Abdul Kafarati of an Abuja High Court on January 13, has a pending appeal before the Court of Appeal, Abuja, which is due for hearing in September. He averred that despite having full knowledge of the pending appeal, PDP still went ahead to constitute a committee to plan a mini-convention during which position of national secretary will be filled. The Presidency source accused those peddling stories of removal of the ministers as condition for peace as “just working to portray Jonathan as a weak leader who had lost control of his party. This will not work. Last Saturday’s meeting focused mainly on the activities of the PDP chairman and the reservations the governors had against him.” But it stated that the President “did not give any affirmative response to the demand for the removal of the PDP chairman even though he did not rule out the possibility of such removal if it becomes absolutely necessary.” According to the source, “the President couldn’t have agreed to remove members of his cabinet as they were not in any way related to the touchy issues in the PDP. The outcome of the meeting of the President and the four PDP northern governors has been slanted curiously to include matters that were not on the agenda and never mentioned in the meeting. One of such issues was the allegation that the governors demanded for the sack of Oduah and Alison-Madueke.” And three PDP members who recently withdrew their suit seeking to stop its national convention have disclosed that they went to court to strengthen the party. At a meeting with the Governor Henry Seriake Dickson-led national reconciliation committee in Abuja, the litigants, Bashir Maidugu (a lawyer), Alhaji Yahaya Sule and Abba Yale, explained that things had taken a dangerous turn in the party, and they felt only the courts could check the trend. They stressed that even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recognised that there were problems within the PDP. Maidugu, who spoke on behalf of the litigants, disclosed that it took four days of frank negotiations with the committee to “arrive at where we are.” “Having extracted firm commitments from the committee to right the wrongs in the party, we were left with no option than to withdraw our suit,” he remarked. “We are here to assure Nigerians that we have collectively, without any prodding, withdrawn our suit. We agreed that it is not good to set PDP on fire. No need to overheat the party. Since the committee has agreed to address our grievances, there is no need to continue in court.” He thanked Dickson for leading the negotiations with “frankness”, noting that the PDP remains “the only democratic party where members can drag the party to court and get justice, where the party will feel concerned and reach out to know our grievances.” Dickson thanked the litigants for “truly showing that they are good party men and patriotic Nigerians.” He said: “This is the spirit we want to see in every member of our party, to subsume your personal interests in the generality because collective interest is more important than individual interest.”
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 07:18:20 +0000