Ahmed Gulak, Political Adviser to the President has been talking tough in spite of the crisis rocking the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), insisting that the national chairman, Bamanga Tukur would not be stampeded into stepping aside.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents on Monday, Gulak, accused former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and some governors of being moles within the party.
According to him, Atiku, having been favoured by the party remain indebted to it and should continue to protect it.
He recalled how the former Vice President was welcomed back to the ruling party after he left for the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and even given waiver to contest the 2011 presidential primaries.
“I was surprised because Atiku is supposed to know more than another person that there is no party like PDP. He left PDP and went to ACN and he came back to PDP, because he discovered that outside PDP there is no party, so he had to come back and he was even given the waiver to contest the primary election in 2011.
“Atiku should be grateful to PDP. Atiku is indebted to PDP and the best way to continue to pay the debt is to protect PDP. It is all politics and politics is about interest, and we are harmonising, we are talking, we are dialoguing, because the PDP as a family will not allow any of its members to go away, and even the members that want to go away, we will make bold to tell them that there is no party as good as PDP,” he said.
Asked if the aggrieved party chieftains demanded the removal of the national chairman, Mr. Tukur, the Political aide retorted, “You cannot remove the national chairman like that. He was elected and you will remember that of all the offices, INEC observed that only the position of the national chairman and the financial secretary were properly done and that is why we had do to the special national convention to properly elect the other officers.
“There are processes, there are provisions of the institution, there are provisions of the electoral act, we should not act outside the laws, and we must act within the extant laws of the land. And because the PDP is a law abiding party, we must entrench internal democracy.
“You cannot come and say, remove Mr. A or Mr. B and you cannot say for example remove governor A, there are processes of removal, the constitution is clear about it. And I want to plead with all PDP leaders and members, especially the senior stakeholders to continue dialoguing, you don’t win war at the battle front, you win war on the table.”
Gulak however, noted that the crisis rocking the party is all about individual interests, assuring that they would keep on dialoguing until amicable resolution is reached to move the party forward.
“So it is a matter of dialogue, it is a matter of discussion and God willing these problems will be surmounted. It can never be the end of PDP. PDP has been there from 1998, it is only PDP that has still maintained its name and identity. The other people you are talking about, started as AD, transformed to AC, transformed to ACN, you know they have lost their identity. It is only PDP that has consistently maintained its identity and its name so there is no party that can beat PDP.
“We want to plead with all members of this political party to keep on dialoguing, discussing, because the opposition out there wants the party to split and there are moles in the PDP, we have discovered them and Insha Allah all PDP stakeholders, especially our field commanders who are the governors have discovered this and we are talking,” he said.
Meanwhile, the peace meeting convened by the President on Sunday night was deadlocked and would resume on Tuesday. In attendance at the meeting which ended in the early hours of Monday were the chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT), Tony Anenih and 16 Governors.
The Governors present were Governors Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
(Kano), Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Idris Wada (Kogi), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom) and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara).
Others were Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Ibrahim Shema (Katsina), Mukhtar Ramallan Yero (Kaduna), Garba Umar (Taraba Acting Governor), Saiidu Dakingari (Kebbi), Theodore Orji (Abia), Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe), Jonah Jang (Plateau).
On the peace meeting, Gulak said President Jonathan listened to the Governors, adding “politics is about interests and whatever somebody says is how can his interest be protected and they have put on the table what they want, or put on the table what it should be and the leader has carefully listened and analyzed it and we keep on talking”.
