Date Published: 12/14/10
PDP NEC Meeting ends in fiasco
…As Jonathan calls for calm...Says this is critical period
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), National Executive Committee (NEC), meeting held in Abuja today nearly ended in a fiasco as the President Goodluck Jonathan’s bloc and the Atiku Abubabkar flank of the party could not agree on the agenda of the meeting which ended after barely five minutes.
The reversed timetable for the party’s primaries, the issue of zoning, and the amendment by the House of the Electoral Act, have been threatening the fiber of the party as there are divergent views on each item.
It was learnt that few minutes after the national chairman of the party, Okwesilieze Nwodo and President Goodluck Jonathan delivered their speeches, the party’s national legal adviser, Chief Olusola Oke, was forced to move a motion for adjournment of the meeting which was promptly seconded by Hon. Garba Matazu of Katsina state. Pointblanknews.com learnt that the meeting, which made history as the shortest NEC of PDP, which barely lasted five minutes, could have ended in fiasco had the meeting gone ahead as originally planned.
Item number four on the agenda, which was the approval of the time table for the party’s congresses and convention, structured along what was approved in the 53rd NEC, was said to have caused the greatest discontent among the membership and leadership of the party, to the extent that those in support of President Jonathan and those working for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, were poised to take on one another had the matter been discussed.
According to the 53rd NEC of PDP, congresses for the election of the candidates for the State Assembly positions would have come first followed by the election of candidates for the National Assembly posts, then the Presidency and finally the governorship.
But, this order of congress did not go down well with the Governors who met all through Monday night in Abuja, working out strategies on how to thwart the entire move, since they consider that holding the national convention to produce the presidential candidate of the party would favor Jonathan but holding their own congress after that of the presidency, would certainly put their fate in a negative balance.
Pointblanknews.com sources hinted that while Nwodo tried to hide the facts of the problem from the public while addressing the party leaders, President Jonathan harped on the level of discontent and disagreement in the party, asking all the warring parties to sheath their swords and embrace dialogue and negotiation.
The President admitted that it was indeed a trying period for the party, but added that “this period is very critical not for PDP alone but for the whole country”.
Though he tried passing the buck on their political opponents whom he accused of showing more than normal interest in tier activities of the party, he warned the PDP members on the implications of embracing dialogue as he narrated that “even though we don’t know when they conduct their own primaries but they want to be involved and witness our primaries”.
Stressing on the need for peace to return to the party, Jonathan told the party members that: “Let me use the opportunity to plead with those of us who are aspirants at one level or the other to play the politics in away that they will remember that we are a member of one political family.
“At the end of our primary election, we must come together to protect the interest of PDP and no matter the challenges we have, we must realize that because other parties will want to weaken us.
“Everyday we read in the newspapers that some members of the party want to defect or defecting to other parties. Some of these stories may be true but some is just to weaken us and make [people say that everybody is leaving PDP.
“No matter what anybody says we are the ruling party. That is why the challenges is more on us and any ripples in the PDP will appear like a wind. A wind in other places will not even appear like ripples. The challenge of leadership is more on us. Maintaining the position is more on us than others.
“So we should not take some of the stories seriously but at the same time we must be mindful of how we conduct ourselves in the process of our primary elections.
“One must state clearly that this is a ruling party and we will expect all sectors, all major divisions of the party to know that we belong to the same body. By God grace and by hard work we control majority in the national Assembly and many state assemblies and by God grace also, we have majority in the Governors forum.
“Anything that the PDP Governors decides that is what the Governor forum decides because politics is about game of numbers. By God grace we control the Executives because the President, Vice president and most of the ministers are members of PDP. All these sectors must work together we must see ourselves as one”.
Expressing great worry on the situation on hand, the President told the party members, some of who, we gathered had come to the meeting prepared to make things difficult for the President that “the issue of one group isolating themselves or others isolating themselves as If we must be boxing ourselves is not in the interest of the party.
“I plead with us that we must realize that for any political differences, dialogue resolves issues. I believe that court don’t even resolve political differences because court can give you judgment but they are not moral judgment but if people sit down and reason together it is always better than other options especially when internal crisis are involved.
“I encourage all of us to see how we can come together to resolve our differences if any and let us play the politics as we belong to the same family".
Nwodo had while making his opening remarks at the meeting appealed to members of the party in states where there were crises to “be magnanimous and give peace a chance by withdrawing their cases in court and allow us to re-establish, through dialogue and reconciliation, a unified party structure that is critical for our victories in the upcoming elections”
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