Uneasy calm as PDP inaugurates interim Exco

[PeoplesDaily]

By Lawrence Olaoye

As the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) inaugurates the interim members of its National Working Committee today, there are speculations that the crisis in the party may still be far from being over.

The interim NWC members are to replace the ones who last week resigned their positions at the party's National Executive Committee (NEC)'s meeting held at the party's headquarters, Abuja.

It was learnt that tension has begun to build up again in the party as there are suspicions that most of the ousted NWC members, who were made to resign their positions owing to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)'s reports which pointed out some irregularities in the conduct of the 2012 party convention which produced them, may be dropped at the July 20 Special Convention.

This suspicion was further swelled by the comments made by the Chairman of the PDP Convention Committee, Professor Jerry Gana, last weekend that the vacant positions would be made open for all interested candidates to contest even though the zoning arrangement would be maintained.

Gana had told newsmen that the party would not stop anyone wishing to contest from doing so but this comment did not go down well with the ousted NWC members who believed that the Special Convention was to regularize their election held in 2012 as not to serve as a fresh exercise for all to participate.

A source close to one of the ousted NWC member who pleaded anonymity lamented "We are beginning to feel uncomfortable with the development ahead of the Special Convention. What we were told before was that the convention would be made to regularize the election of the NWC members faulted by the INEC. That was why it was resolved that the same delegates from the states who participated at the 2012 congress would be retained.

"But the news coming that the Congress would be made open to other contestants is disturbing and if such happens, it amounts only to insincerity and betrayer by the party leadership," he added.

It was further learnt that there are moves to ensure that certain members of the NWC never made it back to the PDP executive on accounts of their association. A certain NWC member from the South south may lose his position for being too close to a governor in the zone considered opposed not only to President Goodluck Jonathan but to the leadership of the party.

Some other political godfathers who hitherto have no representation aboard the Alhaji Bamanga Tukur led NWC have begun to make deft moves to sponsor their lackeys to represent their interests in the party's leadership ahead of 2015 general elections.

Apart from the politics of the party Exco, there are indications that some aggrieved governors on the platform of the PDP have yet to bury the hatchet in spite of the seeming peace achieved after the party's NEC.

It was gathered that some of the aggrieved governors have begun fresh plots to get the National Chairman removed at the July 20th Special Convention. Part of the plot, according to a source within the party, is to cause a rift between Tukur and the President in order to soften the ground for the final offensive against him.

The source added that Tukur's removal to score certain political point may be part of the preconditions the aggrieved governors would give to Jonathan for their support for his second term bid on the platform of the party.

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