PDP Governors Look Beyond Ogbulafor

Sunday, 25 April 2010 12:24

The 28 state governors who are members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have plotted an alternative plan aimed at preserving their influence within the party while also protecting the integrity of the National Executive Committee (NEC) in the event that they could not thwart a partisan move sponsored by a group to oust the national chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor.

However, the Presidency yesterday officially distanced the Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, from Presidential Campaign posters that have flooded  some streets of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and advised members of the public, particularly “friends and associates of the Acting President” to disregard the posters.

According to a source close to the PDP governors caucus, apart from the main plan in which they hope to resist the move to remove Ogbulafor, their plan B is to get the national chairman to voluntarily step aside and fully delegate his powers to his deputy, Dr Haliru Mohammed Bello in line with the provision of Article 13.1 of the party’s constitution.

The article provides that “there shall be a National Chairman who shall be the chief executive of the party. His functions shall include to: …delegate his powers to the Deputy National Chairman or any of the national vice chairmen…”

With this arrangement to ensure Ogbulafor hands over to Bello, the PDP governors hope to frustrate the efforts of the anti-Ogbulafor group which is plotting against the chairman following his public statement on the zoning formula of the party.

Bello, a former comptroller –general of customs is a Yar’Adua hardliner and a core believer in the party’s zoning formula which should still produce the next president from the north.

The governors’ plan is that if Ogbulafor is being pushed out for partisan reasons because he announced that the party’s next presidential candidate for the 2011 general elections will come from the north, then those behind the plot will find a harder nut to crack in Bello who is a core  Yar’Adua loyalist and who will ensure that the zoning formula is strictly adhered to.

By this plan B being hatched by the governors, they are set to ignore the provision of Article 14.5 of the PDP which states that “where a vacancy occurs in any of the offices of the party, the committee (NEC) shall appoint a substitute from the zone where the office originated pending the conduct of election to fill the vacancy.”

The argument of the governors is that the arrangement which produced Dr Goodluck Jonathan as acting president has set a precedent which the party should follow at all times. After President  Umaru Yar’Adua’s illness became prolonged, PDP governors working alongside their colleagues under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum commenced an initiative which eventually led to the National Assembly resolution making Vice President Jonathan the Acting President with full executive powers.

In the present situation, the governors are claiming that since they did not insist that an acting president should come from the north to which the party’s presidential ticket was zoned, then the same system of a principal handing over to a deputy in case of an emergency should also be adopted in the Ogbulafor case. Under the plan B being put in place by the governors, Ogbulafor would only step aside in case he is arraigned in court over allegations bordering on party financial matters when he was the national secretary in 2003.

The allegations had been investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2004 and the case file closed. It is believed that the re-opening of the case is politically motivated and that it smacks of the old era under former President Olusegun Obasanjo in which the anti-corruption agencies, EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), were used to persecute political opponents, a situation which negatively affected the rating of the agencies.

Bello’s leadership of the party’s NEC in the possible absence of Ogbulafor will preserve the committee and oversee the conduct of the primaries to produce the party’s candidates in the next general elections.

However, there is a snag in the plan by the governors which is weaved around Bello. Bello has been named in the Siemens scandal as one of the beneficiaries of the bribe distributed by an agent of the company to some influential Nigerians. The case may be used by the anti-Ogbulafor forces to reject a plan by the PDP national chairman to hand over to him.

The governors’ counter-position on that point is that as it was stated in the same case concerning former president Obasanjo, there is no hard evidence to sustain the allegation against Bello other than a mere claim made by a foreigner.

Bello’s allies are already saying that no case can be built against the man based on a mere claim of a foreigner who cannot substantiate his allegation.

“Any case built on that claim is sure to fail as there is no evidence to substantiate the claim. Bello is a honest man,” a loyalist of the PDP deputy national chairman told THISDAY on phone from Kaduna yesterday.

Also, as part of the alternative plan being hatched by the PDP governors, if Ogbulafor has to step aside, he will make it clear that he is only doing so to enable him clear his name and that he will return to his duty post as soon as he is acquitted of the charges against him.

Part of the plan is to also make it clear that the party chairman is being persecuted by those who believe that the zoning formula he publicly announced would injure the calculations by some undeclared, potential candidates.

Reacting to the sudden appearance of pro-Jonathan campaign posters, the Presidency in a statement entitled: “Those Posters are Distraction”, the Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, to the Acting President, Mr. Ima Niboro, dismissed the campaign and said  it was a distraction to the Acting President.

“The Attention of the Acting President has been drawn to the Jonathan for 2011 posters which appeared in Abuja yesterday (Friday). He views this development as a distraction from the crucial requirements of the nation at this time,” the statement said.

According to him, the immediate priority of the Acting President is to attend to the prevalent challenges of inadequate energy and power supply to Nigerians, as well as conducting free and fair general elections come 2011.

While calling on all well meaning Nigerians to support government’s current efforts geared towards moving the country to the next level, the Acting Presidential spokesman said “we ask those behind them (posters) to desist forth with. The challenges the nation faces are daunting enough and we must not play politics with them”.