PDP may sack Tukur over Anambra crisis •As aspirants call for fresh primaries

AS PEOPLES Democratic Party, PDP, delegates from across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, ar­rive Abuja for the Special National Con­vention of the Party holding tomorrow Saturday at the Eagles Square, there are strong indications that the party may drop its National Chairman, Dr Baman­ga Tukur at the Special Convention. This move it was reliably gathered last night made the party to shift the date of screening of aspirant for the national offices from Tuesday to Friday (today) to enable the party source for a replacement for the embattled national chairman. In­deed, since Tukur came into office, it has been one battle/controversy or another with several calls and moves at various times to oust him. However, he has re­mained unmoved despite strident oppo­sition, insisting that he would serve out his tenure.

However, those who want Tukur out are unrelenting and have brought up the issue of the shoddy handling of the recently held party primary in Anambra state with allegations bordering on dou­ble dealing and corruption being leveled against the National Chairman But his aides said his hands are clean and de­scribed the allegations as the handiwork of his enemies.

But President Goodluck Jonathan is said to have ordered thorough investiga­tions of the role of the National Chair­man in the on-going Anambra crisis. Meanwhile, some of the aspirants have called on the National Working Commit­tee of the party to either conduct fresh primaries in the state or select a consen­sus candidate outside the two warring factions. Hovewer, yesterday the party announced the suspension of Dr Andy Ubah, his brother Chris Ubah and others from the party.

One of the allegations against the Na­tional Chairman is that of incompetence and double dealing in the handling of the Governorship Primaries in Anambra State.

Nigerian Pilot gathered that Dr Tukur in May this year wrote a letter to the Chair­man of the Independent National Elec­toral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega affirming one Mr. Ejike Oguebego as the authentic state party Chairman in Anambra State. However, in August (this month), Prince Chidubem Nwuche, the Acting Deputy National Chairman, wrote another letter to INEC forward­ing the name of another person one Mr. Emeakanyi as the State party chairman.

However, Prof. Jega was said to have ignored the last letter and went ahead to endorse Mr. Oguebego, as reflected in the recent letter to the PDP and signed by the former INEC Secretary Mr. Kaigama. The commission was said to have acted on the strength of the previous letter from Dr Tukur. The INEC Chairman was quoted to have told the PDP Executive members who visited his office recently that he would not recognise a letter from Nwuche and that Tukur’s letter subsists until withdrawn by him.

It is on the basis of this that party watchers have queried the action of Tukur who this week presented PDP certificate of return to Mr. Tony Nwoye, winner of the primary conducted by one of the factions in Anambra State led by Mr. Emeakanyi.

According to one of the National offic­ers of the party who spoke to Nigerian Pilot in Abuja yesterday in confidential­ity “ how can Dr Tukur present certifi­cate to Nwoye when his letter to INEC endorsing Oguebego as party chairman has not been withdrawn and there is also a subsisting court order recognising Oguebego as State PDP chairman for An­ambra State?

“The simplest thing Tukur ought to have done would have been to write to INEC forwarding the name of Emeakanyi as the state party chairman. But Tukur did not do that rather; rath­er he dumped Oguebego and his group three months after endorsement and in a sudden move, backed the other camp led by Emeakanyi. That is not expected of a man occupying an exalted office as

the National Chairman”, the official said.

However, another National party officer told Nigerian Pilot that ‘’there was no way Dr Tukur or the National Working Committee would forward Emeakanyi’ s name as state chairman as there was no state party congress held for such pur­pose. He stated that the best the NWC could do was to appoint Emeakanyi as acting State Chairman, stressing that both the Electoral Act (as amended) and the PDP Constitution provide that elec­tion of state chairman and members must be through a congress, which in the case of Anambra was not done. In order words, calling Emenakanyi state Chair­man is null and void and unconstitution­al’’, he said

Another reason why the party may vote against the continued stay of the Nation­al Chairman at tomorrow’s convention is said to be an unfavourable security re­ports on Dr Tukur. It was alleged that the Chairman and one of his family members involved themselves in an unclean deal­ings with three of the key contenders to the Awka Government house on the plat­form of the PDP. These aspirants were alleged to have made monetary offers in order to be favoured. It was however not clear as at last night if the offers were accepted as efforts made to speak to Dr Tukur to confirm or deny the allegation were unsuccessful as he was engaged in a meeting.

But a source said a meeting/dinner with all the aspirants had been convened in Tukur’s house last night to find an ami­cable solution to the imbroglio.

Another dangerous dimension to the Anambra issue is said to be the influence of a chieftain of the Party in the State and an oil magnet Chief Arthur Eze.

Eze is alleged to have an axe to grind with the Andy Ubah family and is doing everything possible to stop him by spon­soring Mr. Tony Nwoye who won the primaries conducted by the Emeakanyi Camp and favoured by both the national chairman and the NWC. The industrial­ist is said to have influenced the sudden change and recognition of the Nwoye to the disadvantage of the others.

But the aspirants calling for the cancel­lation of the two primaries and conduct of fresh primary are alleging foul play by the party’s electoral committee led by Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State which they accused that prior to the conduct of the primaries failed to secure a consensus candidate among the aspirants

According to them, before the com­mencement of the primaries held by the Emeakayi faction, which was conducted by the PDP national body, Governor Shema had invited all the aspirants to a meeting in the office of the Anambra State Police Commissioner. Among those who attended were Emeakayi, Senator Ndoma Egba, the police commissioner and other members of the electoral com­mittee. In the meeting, Shema was said to have asked the aspirants to meet and agree on a consensus candidate so that the committee’s job would be easy. It was gathered that the aspirants, except Sena­tor Andy Ubah, who attended the prima­ries of the Oguebego faction, met and came out with a resolution. The aspirants stated that they and the delegates would vote at the primaries if the court injunc­tions against the exercise were vacated.

Part of the resolutions reached by the aspirants with Shema and his group was that, taking into consideration the con­troversies trailing the conduct of the ward congress, the best thing for the party to do under the prevailing circum­stance was for only statutory delegates to vote and select a candidate for the party after all the court cases have been vacat­ed. The resolution was signed by the fol­lowing aspirants: Emma Anosike, Charles Odunukwe, Akachukwu Nwankpo, Mike Okoye, Obinna Uzoh, Jerry Ugokwe, Agape Ifunanya Dike, Ugochukwu Okeke and Josephine Anenih.

As a result of the resolution some of the aspirants left for their various houses with the belief that the most appropri­ate thing for the Shema committee to do was to send a situation report to the national body of the party but which was not done