Fresh facts emerged yesterday on the President’s stormy meeting with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors at the Villa.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who pointedly told the governors to ensure Rivers State Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi’s removal as the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) chairman, threatened to deploy the machinery of government against governors who did not align with him in his Amaechi-must-go quest.
This was a prelude to the formation of the PDP Governor’s Forum and the subsequent election of its chairman.
Amaechi and Akwa Ibom Governor Godswill Akpabio were asked to leave the room at the Presidential Villa, according to sources close to the meeting, which took place Monday night, before the proceedings.
The sources, who pleaded not to be named because of what they described as the sensitivity of the matter, said besides treating the governors to video clips of Amaechi’s verbal attacks on him, President Jonathan listed three points of threat, which some of the governors saw as “blackmail”.
The President threatened to deprive the governors of their:
•security details;
•access to funds from the excess crude account; and
•refrain from appending his signature to the benchmark for the budget, which he signed yesterday.
His words, which some of the governors saw as dictatorial, did not elicit an open response. The governors were mute.
In spite of the threat, however, the governors did not all fall in line as the anti-Amaechi camp mustered only 16 governors, falling short of the 19 required for a simple majority to remove the chairman.
“The opposition governors lined up behind Amaechi but Governor Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa state supported the president.
He was taken to a private bedroom, where he was persuaded to abandon Amaechi,” another source said.
Also yesterday, Akpabio spoke of a looming implosion, treachery and emergence of Judases within the PDP necessitated the formation of the PDP Governors’ Forum.
Akpabio, who was at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, accompanied by his Bayelsa State counterpart, Seriake Dickson, said the party was in a house cleansing mission.
According to him, the challenges confronting the ruling party forced the leadership to look inwards and put its house in order, stressing that the party never envisaged such challenges in the 14 years of its existence.
He said: “Today we are facing challenges. There is implosion in the party; there is treachery and we now have more Judases than disciples. What the PDP is doing is to cleanse its house. It is a moving train that will crush anyone that stands in the way.
“We will put our heads together in the PDP Governors’ Forum to promote the unity and progress of the party. We will not be fighting the government because we will be working in solidarity of the party.
“The formation of the Forum is to look inwards and project the party and the government. We are doing self cleansing. We can assure everyone that the Forum is not above the National Working Committee of the party. The Forum is subordinate to the party.”
Akpabio declared that the PDP was not in a hurry to vacate governance at the national level, stressing that the new Forum would present a formidable bloc within the larger Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
He dismissed insinuations that the PDP Governors’ Forum was meant to weaken the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, saying that it would rather strengthen and hasten its activities.
PDP National Chairman Bamanga Tukur said with Akpanio’s emergence as the chairman of the new Forum, he could now sleep peacefully at night and even serve his siesta.
Apparently reliving his ordeal in the hands of the Governors’ Forum, Tukur described the latest development as a repackaging of the PDP for the 2015 elections.
“With a repackaged PDP as you can now see, the implication is that it will enable us mobilise our members ahead of the 2015 general elections and face elections and win.
“No doubt, with Chief Tony Anenih as the chairman of our party’s Board of Trustees (BoT), Governor Godswill Akpabio as the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and I as the national chairman, definitely the sky is our limit,” Tukur stated.
The PDP chairman predicted a two-party system with the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2015 elections, saying the elections will be a straight fight between the APC and the PDP.
Source: Nigeria Trends
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