• How Jonathan's intervention averted major clash •PDP chair vows to dissolve committee
Another round of crisis was averted in the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party at the weekend as President Goodluck Jonathan waded into an imminent clash between the party Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and the Chairman of the Special Convention Committee, Professor Jerry Gana.
Sunday Mirror gathered that there was palpable disorder last Thursday after Prof. Gana 'usurped' the duties of the National Chairman by personally inaugurating the convention committee without carrying Tukur along.
Prof. Gana also created subcommittees and personally allocated membership to the committees without recourse to the National Working Committee in spite of the fact that the NWC was meant to play a supervisory role.
"While the meeting was going on, words got to Tukur who was then at the Presidency about the development and hell was let loose," said the source.
Sunday Mirror gathered that while the meeting was in progress at the Legacy House (the campaign headquarters of the ruling party in Abuja) unknown to Prof. Gana, a directive was issued from the Presidency that the date earlier fixed be moved forward in honour of Muslims who are expected to have begun the Ramadan.
The source said that Prof. Gana was inundated with calls from all quarters, including the Presidency over the slight on the National Chairman, after the meeting. Efforts by Sunday Mirror to reach Gana failed. He also failed to exit the Legacy House venue of the deliberation long after other members of the committee had left.
"President Jonathan moved quickly to intervene on the matter by pacifying the National Chairman. He assured the chairman that Gana's oversight would be looked into and would be addressed," said the source.
Tukur, according to the source, had sworn that the subcommittees as they are presently constituted, will not stand and would be rejigged to achieve a balance.
Meanwhile, Sunday Mirror learnt that the subcommittees created include protocol, accreditation, publicity, entertainment, transport, among others. It would be recalled that last Thursday at the Legacy House, over 80 eminent leaders and stakeholders of the party converged for about two hours to discuss the task earlier assigned to them, which was to plan for the special convention of the party scheduled for July 20.
The committee was taken aback as it was informed that the special convention would no longer hold as scheduled, citing the clash with the Islamic fasting period. After the meeting at the Legacy House, neither Prof Gana nor any other member of the committee volunteered to speak to the media.
Other members of the committee include Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio, who is the deputy chairman while Senator Ike Ekweremmadu was expected to serve as the Secretary.
All the 36 states nominated two members each to the committee. There are also 27 other members including the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and governors of Delta, Abia, Katsina, Bauchi and Benue states.
Our correspondent reports that at about 11a.m. on that day, as Dr. Tukur was getting ready to address a conference, he was summoned to the Presidency and a few hours later, the new directive was issued. It is believed that the convention would now hold in August.
A NEC member of the party from the South-East confided in Sunday Mirror that the shift in date for the special convention may not solely be owing to the Muslim fasting issue as presented, rather it may be as a result of the decision of President Jonathan's conviction that there was need to do a proper scrutiny of those who would be members of the NWC.
His words: "Yes, even though the date clashed with the Muslim Islamic injunction, I was at the meeting where this decision was taken and some of these people who are now objecting to the date were all there. How come they didn't raise the issue at the meeting? I think the President accepted to move the date as it will offer him enough time to pick the right candidates to fill these offices, so that the party will not be consumed by some fifth columnists within."
National Mirror