BARRING any last minute truce, first term governors on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may dump President

Sunday Tribune reliably gathered from competent sources in Abuja that the PDP governors, particularly those with second term ambition, see the assurance given by the president to give return tickets to members of the National Assembly in the 2011 election as a slap on their faces and have therefore vowed to resist what one of them referred to as imposition and a move by the presidency to make them irrelevant in their states.

It was also gathered from a highly placed party source that, “ the affected governors are already making contacts with a view to coming up with a counter strategy if the decision of the presidency to grant the lawmakers automatic return ticket was not rescinded.”

Some of the affected governors, sources confided in Sunday Tribune, are enraged that despite their tacit support for his presidential ambition in 2011 against the wish of most of their colleagues, President Jonathan could go ahead to assure federal lawmakers of automatic ticket in 2011.

It was also gathered that the affected governors have all agreed to meet with the president and the national leadership of the party to know the true position of the party as far as the President’s position is concerned.

They were said to have vowed to challenge the national chairman of the party on his declaration that all aspirants will go ‘for primaries. Those who were not ready to confront the president and the party leadership are said to have concluded plans to meet with the former military president.

Competent source in Abuja, who pleaded not to be named, confided in Sunday Tribune that, “if what we read in the papers that members of the National Assembly have been assured automatic ticket in 2011, then I am sorry to say that the president and those who advised him may have unknowingly shot themselves on the foot. President Jonathan, as a former governor, knows that it is the governors and not the lawmakers who own and direct the delegates on where they should cast their votes and for him and his advisers to decide on that without the contribution of the governors to me, is a dangerous political decision which can will boomerang.”

It will be recalled that a newspaper report( not Sunday Tribune) yesterday reported of how President Jonathan and some senators struck a deal to have the election into the National Assembly and the President the same day against the initial recommendation of the Senator Isiaka Adeleke-led Senate Committee on INEC that the presidential election come after all other elections.

It was also gathered that the Presidency may have been arm twisted by the senators to guarantee their  return to the Senate before the Senator Adeleke Committee Report was jettisoned in view of the fact that most of the senators, who are seeking to return to the Senate, have been embroiled in series of battles  with their governors.

Some of the governors who have been having running battles with some of their senators, it was reliably gathered, had vowed that any anti- senator will not be given the return ticket.

The offer from the president was therefore seen as a lifeline for them to return to the Senate without the contribution of their state governors.

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