- Tukur Knows Fate Today As G7 Govs, President Continue Meeting
As leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) meet today in a crucial assemble that could make or break the party, one of the demands that would be made on President Goodluck Jonathan by dissident party members would be that he sacks his Chief of Staff, Mike Oghiadomhe and his Special Adviser on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak.
Apart from the New PDP members and governors of the breakaway faction, other PDP members believe that Jonathan needs to fire key aides whose continuing stay in Aso Rock poses more danger to the President than the dissident members.
Sunday Independent was reliably informed that the sack of the duo was going to be a major demand of the rebel governors in addition to their pending request that President Jonathan drops Bamanga Tukur as the PDP National Chairman.
Their reason, a competent PDP source told our correspondent during the week, is that Oghiadomhe, Gulak and Tukur were responsible for the deteriorating relationship between them and the presidency.
According to the source who is a high ranking member of the PDP, the governors fingered the two presidential aides as responsible for the high level distrust that exists between them and the presidency.
The source said the aggrieved governors pointed to the President that Gulak and Oghiadomhe have caged him and always blocked them from having access to him whenever they visited the presidential villa and in most cases, giving childish excuses why seeing the number one citizen could not be possible. “They are taking that as personal slight and are determined not to tolerate that from the two men,” the source said.
The governors, it was also learnt, accused Oghiadomhe and Gulak of fueling the suspicion between them and the presidency. “The governors said the aides were in the habit of telling Jonathan about his perceived enemies and how to deal with them instead of helping the President to bridge the gap of distrust that exists between him and his opponents,” he said.
The source added that the governors are particularly angry with Oghiadomhe for what they termed his “overbearing role on the presidency.”
One of the governors told Sunday Independent that even though Oghiadomhe’s portfolio as Chief of Staff did not qualify him as a delegate in the last PDP Special Convention, he nonetheless presented himself as one, a development which most party members who knew the implication of what he did simply ignored because of the respect they have for the President. And as another New PDP source asked: “For how long will party members continue to tolerate this from those who believe access to the President confers all manner of powers on them?”
The sack of the presidential aides is just one of the many demands of the new faction of the PDP who were being represented in the meeting by Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, Niger State governor, Babangida Aliyu, Sokoto State governor, Aliyu Wamakko and Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido.
The faction, under the leadership of Abubakar Kawu Baraje also wants the President to call for a fresh convention where the party’s national officers would be chosen as against the August 31 mini convention where they felt short-changed during the exercise and then staged a walk out. They also want the President to drop his re-election bid and allow the rotation of the presidency back to the North in 2015.
Whether Jonathan would sack the aides and accede to the other demands of the faction will remain to be seen. But the governors, it was gathered, have asked the President to summon the courage to do so in his interest and for the interest of the PDP.
Though findings by this newspaper also revealed that President Jonathan does not want to hurt the feelings of the affected aides or any other person by pushing them out of his government, sources said he might be compelled to axe them in order to get reprieve on the other demands, especially his re-election bid.
Regardless, last Wednesday’s sack of ministers believed to be loyal to the rebel governors by the presidency might also jeopardise today’s peace process meeting.
Most of the sacked ministers were nominees of the rebel governors which Sunday Independent of June 16 had exclusively reported about their planned sack by the presidency.
In the said report, it was said that Jonathan reasoned that it was high time he shopped for shrewd politicians from “enemy states” as ministers who will tackle their governors ahead of the 2015 presidential election.
Source: Daily Independent
