PDP crisis: Now, the peace process is dead

The peace process initiated by a committee of elders of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party can safely be said to be either on life support or dead.

This followed Monday’s decision by the  Bamanga Tukur-led faction of the party to call the bluff of the Abubakar Baraje-led group by placing the group’s leading figures on suspension.

In the largely unexpected and unprecedented move, Tukur announced the suspension of the factional Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Baraje and its Secretary Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, its deputy National Chairman, Sam Sam Jaja and Ambassador Kazaure who are considered pivotal to the operations of the group of aggrieved members.

Before Monday’s decision, the Tukur-led PDP had secured a court judgment declaring the Baraje-led faction of the party an illegal entity.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, had enjoined the security services to treat any member of the faction parading himself/ herself as a parallel official of the party as a criminal.

This happened before an Appeal Court in Abuja delivered a judgment in a suit filed by Oyinlola challenging his ouster as the party’s National Secretary.

Most political analysts failed to see the suspension of Baraje, Oyinlola and others coming largely because an Abuja Court of Appeal on Thursday last week reinstated Oyinlola as the party’s National Secretary.

Emboldened by this court decision, the aggrieved members of the party under the aegis of nPDP continued to function as a faction of the PDP.

Six out of the seven aggrieved PDP governors and the leadership of the outlawed nPDP met in Abuja, on Sunday night to deliberate on the Oyinlola’s victory which was considered a collective victory and chart a new course for their struggle.

One of the decisions reached after more than five hours of deliberations was a call for the immediate implementation of the court judgment reinstating Oyinlola.

Little did they know that an earlier claim by Chief Olisa Metuh that the party was yet to receive a copy of the said court judgment or any court order for Oyinlola’s reinstatement was a prelude to the suspension of some of their key members.

Governor Rotimi Ameachi of Rivers State is still serving out his indefinite suspension from the party.

Monday’s suspension order obviously took members of the aggrieved faction of the party off guard. Its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Chukwuemeka Eze said, “You see, the problem we are having with Tukur and his National Working Committee is that they lack common understanding of the PDP constitution.

“This is an abuse of the judiciary and the Nigeria constitution on fair hearing and most importantly, the PDP constitution of 2009 as amended Article 21 section 9 which states: ‘Notwithstanding any other provision of this constitution relating to discipline, no executive committee at any level except  NEC shall entertain any question of discipline as may relate or concern…”

Apart from those just suspended, six aggrieved governors on the party platform namely: Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) have continued to lead the revolt against Tukur’s leadership style.

They argue that Tukur’s style of administration has destroyed the cohesion  the party once enjoyed.

It may be recalled that  had in its Friday, November 8 edition exclusively reported that the party’s peace moves had hit a dead end.

The story entitled: “PDP peace moves hit a dead end”, which was sourced from a reliable source in the Presidency predicted correctly that the President was no longer favourably disposed to further discussions with the aggrieved governors and members of the faction.

It is now clear that the Tukur-led executive of the PDP, which still enjoys the support of the President, has opted to go for broke.  It is left for aggrieved members of the party to prepare an appropriate  response.