Written by Ahmed Mohammed, Bauchi Thursday, 22 March 2012
President Goodluck Jonathan’s bid to install Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as PDP national chairman suffered a huge blow yesterday when the Northeast zonal caucus of the party announced endorsing Dr. Umar Babayo, who is believed to be the favourite of the governors.
The People’s Democratic Party zoned its national chairmanship to the North east, and the zonal leaders took a vote on Tuesday night at a meeting in Bauchi to decide who should be presented to Saturday’s national convention as consensus candidate.Babayo scored 14 votes to beat Tukur who got 2 votes, with Alhaji Ibrahim Bunu and Dr Shettima Mustapha also getting 2 votes each. Former Bauchi governor Ahmadu Adamu Mua’zu and outgoing PDP publicity secretary Rufai Alkali scored 1 vote each.
Announcing the result yesterday, outgoing PDP national vice chairman (Northeast) Senator Paul Wampana said the vote would not preclude the losing candidates from standing for the chairmanship at Saturday’s convention in Abuja.
Wampana said Babayo’s endorsement was decided at the party’s caucus meeting Tuesday night in Bauchi, following zoning of the chairmanship to the Northeast. He said party stakeholders decided to endorse Babayo because he has been a party insider for a long time.
After the vote, Senator Adamu Ibrahim Gumba moved a motion for the adoption of the result, and was seconded by a former House of Representatives member from Taraba State, Binta Garba.
The voting was held as part of the Northeast zonal congress held to select candidates for the national working committee posts allocated to zone and to also elect the zonal executive of the party. Similar congresses were held in the five other zones of the country yesterday.
Babayo, a former acting PDP national secretary, is said to be a candidate of state governors in the party while Tukur, a former governor of old Gongola State, is believed to have the backing of Jonathan.
But Tukur’s camp yesterday rejected the Bauchi vote. His campaign director Dauda Birma said they rejected the Northeast’s election because it was held by a few people.
“If you were there, you will testify to the fact that nobody had voted, you will testify to the fact that the zonal chairman of the party came out to say that a consensus candidate has been picked up for the chairmanship of the PDP,” Birma said.
“He even went on to say that a secret voting at which 11 votes were scored by the person who emerged the winner, and he said Alhaji Bamanga Tukur scored two votes. We are not talking of chairman of the PDP for Northeast, we are trying to produce a candidate for Nigeria with 150 million people.
“Is it not laughable that 11 people will go and sit down and say that they have produced a candidate for the PDP in Nigeria? What then is going to be the fate of democracy in Nigeria?
“Bamanga Tukur came forward to contest in the belief that anybody that had put forward his name as an aspirant be given the opportunity of going to Eagle Square and be voted for. And if he is voted for, fine, it is either he loses or wins.
“But can you imagine a situation where 11 people, whoever they may be, come out and say this is the chairman of PDP? All they want is for him to be endorsed. That is not possible. Bamanga Tukur and his team have rejected it in its entirety, it will not happen. We shall be at Eagle Square on Saturday, that is that.”
For his part, Mu’azu declined to speak to journalists.
At the zonal congress, Senator Girgir Lawan from Borno state emerged the new national vice chairman, Bala Gayama from Taraba State became zonal secretary and Sani Al’amin Mohammed from Bauchi State was named zonal publicity secretary.
Lawan and his team of 15 zonal officials were sworn in by chairman of the electoral committee Chief Shuaibu Oyedokun and assisted by Godwin Bozimo, who read a section of the party’s condition which says that consensus was part of the democratic process and acceptable by the party.
The congress was attended by PDP governors in the zone—Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe, Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, Danbaba Suntai of Taraba and Murtala Nyako of Adamawa.
SOURCE: Daily Trust, 22 March 2012. http://dailytrust.com.ng/
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