THE 2015 elections and alleged unconventional leadership style of the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Bamanga Tukur, are responsible for the frosty relationship between him and the party’s governors, it was learnt, at the weekend.
The cold war hit the roof last weekend when majority of the governors snubbed a book presentation to mark Tukur’s 77th birthday in Abuja.
President Goodluck Jonathan was at the event.
Only three PDP governors were in attendance. Those who attended were Alhaji Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), Chief Theodore Orji (Abia), and Patrick Yakowa (Kaduna). Governor Ibrahim Shema (Katsina) and Jonah Jang (Plateau) sent their deputies.
Party sources told The Nation yesterday that the issue of who flies the party’s flag in 2015 is at the heart of the cold war.
A party chieftain from one of the South-South states, who craved anonymity, said from day one, many of the governors, especially those from the North have interpreted Jonathan’s insistence on making Tukur national chairman to be for no other reason than 2015.
He said once they were unable to stop Tukur’s emergence they are not ready to allow that sole objective for his emergence to materialise.
“It is all about 2015. The governors want one of their own, which is a tradition they want to establish in this country. Already, there are two or three governors from the region who are known to harbour presidential ambition and they have succeeded in reaching out to some of their colleagues in the South-South region to run as vice president. But in all, the issue is that the North wants to produce the president in 2015 but from all indications, the chairman is not favourably disposed toward the idea and that is the crux of the matter”.
The source also revealed that the style of the national chairman has tended to “erect a wall that the governors find uncomfortable. They think that it was never like this, there is a visible sign of alienation or keeping one’s distance, if you know what I mean”, the source stated.
But media aide to Tukur, Alhaji Ujudud Sheriff debunked the insinuation as untrue. In a telephone interview with The Nation yesterday afternoon, Sheriff said: “To the best of my knowledge, that is not true because, coincidentally, this morning, I don’t know whether you listened to the Voice of Nigeria (VON) or not, he was asked to comment on a similar question. So it is not true. As far as we are concerned the governors were all present because they sent representatives of theirs. Let’s face it, there is no way all the governors of the party would be there at the book presentation. They also have very pressing programmes, don’t forget.
“Those who were available came. So it has nothing to do with 2015. But this is democracy; you must allow people to express their minds.”
He said the chairman has always maintained that it is not time to talk 2015 and that it is time to sit down and work to satisfy the aspirations of Nigerians who voted for the governors and the president.
Sheriff also said the issue of the manner of running the party being a source of friction is totally false as he has never heard anything like that before.
At the presentation of the book, ‘The Global Villager,’ a biography on Tukur, written by Eddie Aderinokun, Orji apologised on behalf of his colleagues and claimed that he had their mandate to pick few copies for each of them.
