Barring last minute change in schedule, President Goodluck Jonathan and the seven aggrieved Peoples Democratic Party governors will resume peace talks on Sunday (today).
Signs that the talks may end again in a deadlock began to emerge on Friday when The Presidency hinted that it was not prepared to accede to unconstitutional demands.
The Presidency made it clear that President Jonathan would not concede to anything against the letter of the Nigerian Constitution as well as that of the party.
Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Mr. Ahmed Gulak, said this in an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, in Abuja, on Friday.
Gulak said as a listening leader of the party, President Goodluck Jonathan would listen to the aggrieved persons but would not be party to anything that was unconstitutional.
He said that as a man of peace, the President would engage the aggrieved members only on the way forward.
Specifically, the presidential aide said the demand for the sacking of the party’s National Chairman, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, and stopping Jonathan from contesting again were clearly not a path to the way forward.
He said, “The President is willing to listen to them and discuss the ways forward. He is a listening leader of the party.
“The best he can do is to sit with them and listen to them. In discussing, however, the President will not agree with anything that is against the provisions of either the nation’s constitution or the party’s constitution.
“Sacking of Alhaji Tukur is definitely not the way forward. The President not contesting second term despite the fact that the constitution allows him is also not the way forward.
“Simply put, therefore, the President will not concede to anything that is unconstitutional.”
In a related development, the Alhaji Bamanga Tukur-led PDP has said only its national working committee can decide what the next step would be if ongoing reconciliatory efforts with aggrieved members fail.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa Metuh, said this in a telephone interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, in Abuja, on Friday.
He noted that he was not in a position to speak on what the NWC was likely to do, because it had yet to meet to deliberate on the issue.
The party’s spokesman declined comments when asked if the party was not applying double standards by suspending four of its members who along with the seven aggrieved governors pledged allegiance to the breakaway faction of the party.
Those suspended were: the party’s former Secretary, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola; former National Vice-Chairman (South) Sam Sam Jaja; Chairman of the breakaway faction, Abubakar Baraje; and Ambassador Ibrahim Kazaure.
Metuh said, “Only the NWC can take a decision on such (Suspension/ expulsion) issues. I am not in a position to comment on it because we are now focused on the Anambra election. Our party is focused and we will not be distracted.”
Ahead of today’s meeting with the President, the seven aggrieved governors namely: Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers); Sule Lamido (Jigawa); Rabiu Kwankanso (Kano); Muritala Nyako (Adamawa); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); Aliyu Babangida (Niger); and Abdulfatah Ahmed had given fresh conditions to the President that would enable them to reconcile with the PDP.
The governors had demanded that the suspension of Amaechi from the PDP be lifted and that the Presidency should also recognise him as the leader of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
The governors are also insisting that PDP must lift the suspension on Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
They also want the PDP to ensure his resumption as the National Secretary of the party in accordance with the Appeal Court judgment.
The ‘rebel governors’ also want the recall of the factional chairman, Abubakar Kawu Baraje; his deputy, Sam Jaja; and Ambassador Kazaure.
They also reiterated their call for the removal of Tukur as national chairman of the party.
The governors are also said to have requested the President to caution the FCT Minister, Bala Muhammed, over his perceived assault on the G-7 governors.
They were also reported to have asked Jonathan to restore the security aides of the governors, which were withdrawn in the wake of the political crisis and to sanction the policemen that tried to disrupt their meetings in Abuja.
But reacting specifically to the statement made by Gulak on behalf of the Presidency, the governors said Jonathan should ignore Gulak.
The governors said Gulak was actually not representing the interest of the President with his utterances, which they said were aimed at putting him(Jonathan) in a bad light.
The governors spoke through the National Publicity Secretary of the New Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Chukwuemeka Eze, in a telephone interview with SUNDAY PUNCH.
Eze, who was responding to the claim by Gulak that the President would not meet the conditions of the governors at the meeting he is having with them on Sunday (today), described the adviser as “one of the numerous bad advisers of the President.”
He said, “Who is Gulak to be saying that the President would not meet the conditions for peace in his political party?
“Whose interest is he representing? He is a bad adviser. He has a hidden agenda and he is out there to mis-advise the President in order for him and the unseen people that he represents so that the President will lose control of the party and be seen in a bad light by Nigerians.
“Nigerians should ask Gulak what type of adviser he is. It is in the interest of the President and the party to listen to the seven governors.”
Eze asked the President to learn from the biblical Shepherd, who he said, abandoned 99 sheep in search of the missing one.
Eze said that left to the likes of Gulak, the President would have become a leper, and be abandoned by his associates and friends.
He said Gulak and others like him profited from crisis like this, and asked the president to be weary of such people.
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