PDP Convention: Tension Mounts In OBJ’s Camp - It’s A Beer Parlour Talk - PDP

By Olusola Sanni - 16.02.2008

Ahead of March 15 national convention of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there are indications that the camp of former president Obasanjo is considering an option to scuttle the convention.

It is believed that Obasanjo’s stake in the convention is the retention of his position as the Board of Trustees chairman and the emergence of his choice candidate, former governor of Ebonyi State, Sam Egwu, as the new national chairman of the PDP.

Accordingly, the Obasanjo camp has been going round the entire country seeking the commitment of some of the delegates.
Impeccable sources, however, revealed to Saturday Tribune that the camp was making a fall-back strategy in case it is unable to secure the commitment of delegates sufficient enough for it to coast to victory.

The strategy, according to sources, is to disqualify some candidates from the convention, with the expectation that the disqualified candidates will challenge their disqualification at the court.

The idea behind the strategy is that the court is likely to pronounce that the convention be put on hold until the determination of the case that the disqualified candidates brought before it.

That, it is expected, will give the camp more time to reach out to more delegates. It is gathered that the controversy surrounding the constitution of the convention committee of the party is partly because there are strong suspicions that the retention of out-going National Chairman of the PDP, Ahmadu Ali, as the Convention Committee Chairman and the Deputy National Chairman (South), Chief Olabode George, as the Convention Planning Committee Chairman, is part of the grand plan to keep the them in strategic positions where they can influence the outcome of the convention.
Both Ali and George are arch-supporters of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“They want to use the persons of outgoing PDP National Chairman, Ahmadu Ali, and Bode George, to disqualify one of the leading national chairmanship aspirants, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, from the contest. This informs the desperate efforts by the group to retain Ali as the convention committee chairman and Bode George as the Convention Planning Committee Chairman, the two strategic positions in the convention,” a source said.

Also, Dr. Sam Egwu, sources revealed, is planning to use the burial of the father of one of the members of the federal House of Representatives, Igwe Nwagu, on February 16, at Orie-Uzor in Ezza-North council area of Ebonyi State as a platform to reach out to legislators.

But the opposition in the PDP is also making a fall back strategy, too. A source revealed to Saturday Tribune that the G21, a group of opposition members in the PDP, is threatening that they will pull out of the party should the Obasanjo group hijack the convention.

The G21, headed by a founding father of the PDP, Adamu Ciroma, is already making effort to put spanners in the works of the pro-Egwu group, as it insists that it will pull out of the PDP if the process that brings up the next national chairman of the PDP is fraught with malpractices.

The group, it was learnt, has been making consultations with various interest groups in the country to actualise its threat. In all of this, the position of the presidency is yet unknown.

A presidency source told Saturday Tribune that the presidency prefers to sit on the fence concerning who becomes what at the convention. Indeed, the source revealed that in other to ensure that the convention does not break the unity of the party, the presidency is considering a neutral candidate for the position of the national chairman of the party.

But the deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Muyiwa Collins, in a telephone interview with Saturday Tribune on Thursday, said that the talk about the party leadership plotting to disqualify some candidates was a “beer parlour” talk.

He said that Bode George and Ahmadu Ali, being chairmen of convention committees is no big deal.