Still trying to take total control of the party structures ahead of the 2015 election, the leadership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has begun moves to woo state chairmen and deputy national officers of the party to work against governors, whose loyalty to the Presidency and the party is suspicious.
Vanguard learnt from authoritative sources last night that the leadership, which is working in league with the Presidency, had summoned state chairmen from many states and briefed them on the need to cooperate with the Bamanga Tukur-led administration in its bid to hold its National Executive Council meeting, without moving a motion against it.
The party leadership has not been able to hold its quarterly NEC meeting as stipulated by its constitution because of simmering fear that the governors, who control most of the state chairmen and national officials, could instigate them to pass a vote of no confidence on Tukur and his executives.
President Goodluck Jonathan
Most PDP governors are angry with Tukur for sacking the Adamawa State Exco of the party loyal to Governor Nyako and replacing it with one said to be loyal to him with a view to actualising his son’s gubernatorial ambition in 2015.
In a bid to get the support of the state and national officials, the leadership is said to have ‘sourced for funds’ from the Presidency and one of its friendly governors from the southern part of Nigeria to defray the backlog of allowances owed them since the new Exco came into office last year.
The huge amount due the officials was accumulated following the pledge by the national chairman to be paying them N350,000 monthly stipends. But almost a year after, Tukur could not make good his promise due to paucity of funds.
But Vanguard learnt from reliable party sources that the debt to chairmen and deputy national officers were cleared during the week.
as soon as the money was made available by the government and the ‘friendly governor’, whose name, the source declined to give because of security reasons.
It was gathered that it was as a result of the assurance of loyalty and support extracted by the leadership from the state and national officers of the party, that it announced on Friday that it was ready to hold its NEC meeting in as about ten months.
One of the officers, who attended the meeting with the leadership and was paid a ‘reasonable amount of money’ at the end of the secret parley, said that they were asked not to ‘rock the boat’ during the NEC meeting soon to be called.
He said that most of the attendees promised to cooperate with the leadership to host a rancour-free NEC meeting any time from now.
The source hinted,” You remember that the chairman had promised long ago to be paying us N350,000 per month after we had complained of being marginalised.
”The money was not paid until last week. I won’t tell you the amount I got because it might be different from what others got.
”But the most important thing is that we were paid a substantial amount with a warning to us not to move any counter-motion anytime we are going to have our NEC meeting.”
”It was after they paid us and the assurance given by us that we would support them and the Presidency that the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa
Metuh, issued a statement in Abuja on Friday saying the party was ready for its NEC meeting.
Metuh had in the statement, said that the party’s leadership would present clean copies of the PDP amended constitution to NEC but did not say when it would hold
But it could not be ascertained last night if the governors would not use the same officials to work against Tukur when the meeting is eventually held.
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