PDP crisis: Tambuwal set to defect with 50 Reps

– National Mirror

All is now set for the make or mar meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the remaining two members of the G7 governors, Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Babangida Aliyu (Niger) on the efforts to find a lasting solution to the lingering crisis in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Today’s meeting will determine if the remaining two out of the G7 governors will remain in PDP or join the other five to All Progressives Congress, APC, in January.

But while the meeting is going on, the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal has reached an advanced stage in his plots to make a history where he is expected to lead a political revolution with over 50 members of the House of Reps to defect to the opposition APC in one fell swoop.

This defection, if carried out, will automatically give the opposition the leadership of the lower House with Tambuwal still overseeing, but the Presidency has reacted to such plan, saying that the planned defection will yield no fruit as the five governors who recently defected lacked followership in their various states.

Last Sunday, President Jonathan met with Governors Lamido and Aliyu after the defection to APC of five other aggrieved governors including Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwankwaso, (Kano), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa).

Addressing journalists after the meeting, both Lamido and Aliyu pledged loyalty to the PDP but insisted that the President must address the grievances of the governors which include the sacking of the National Chairman of PDP, Bamanga Tukur, and throwing open the presidency in 2015 for everyone who is interested.

The meeting ended with an understanding that a formal position will be taken by the leadership of the party today. But a presidency source had informed Sunday Mirror that President Jonathan may continue to plead with the aggrieved governors to retrace their steps as he is not disposed to either sacking Tukur or disqualifying himself from the presidential race.

“The President however has agreed to lift the sanction imposed by the party on some of its leaders including Governor Amaechi, and the trio of Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Sam Sam Jaja and former chairman and leader of the new PDP, Abubakar Kawu Baraje. “He has also agreed to allow the defected governors greater hand to run the party in their states but had also expressed displeasure on the manner the five governors left the party without full consultation with the President.”

The President, according to the source, is in constant touch with the defected governors who have also assured the President that they will return to the party if their grievances are addressed soon.

Recall that only on Thursday last week, Governor Nyako announced that both Lamido and Aliyu would join the APC camp in January, subject to today’s meeting with Jonathan Meanwhile, Speaker of the House, Tambuwal last week attended the meeting of the APC governors held at the Kano governor’s guest lodge in Asokoro.

Though, he refused to talk on his mission to the meeting, an inside source told Sunday Mirror that the Speaker was invited to brief the Progressive Governors Forum, PGF, on the possibility of changing the leadership garb in the lower House and the likely implication.

The Speaker was assured that all the governors under the PGF will mobilise their members in the lower House to support his plots to work with the opposition to take over the House leadership. Should the defectors declare formally for APC, they would be about 192 as against less than 141 members of the PDP, the remainder would be shared by DPP, LP, APGA (Anambra faction).

According to the House Rules 181, members can form a majority and decide the composition of the House and should that happen, it is expected that the PDP dominated House leadership will give way for another to be led by APC. But in a chat with Sunday Mirror, the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, said that the defection plot is more like a fairy tale as most of the governors have no support of their lawmakers back home.

According to Gulak, “Who told you that the governors are in control of their people in the states and that with the defection of the governors, all their legislators will follow suit? I know that more than 50 members from the states have contacted me individually and collectively, that they are not going to any APC, that they are indebted to PDP and their duty is to protect the PDP.”

“And let it be on records that some members of APC at the national and those at the state assembly particularly those that are elected on the platform of ACN, CPC and ANPP have come to me individually and collectively, that they will soon formally decamp to PDP.

In Adamawa for example, we are going to receive them in a grand ceremony to make a point that not all those in the National Assembly will move to APC. And even those that are supposed to be APC are crossing over to PDP. “In the same way, Nigerians will see that politics is about alignment and realignment.

I have said it severally that the doors of PDP are always open for people to come in as well for returnees. We have seen that before, people had left PDP and they returned and PDP allowed them in.”

Via: 247nigerianewsupdate