Tukur: President rejects govs’ lobby

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has rejected intense pressure mounted on him by the Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to dump the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, a presidency source revealed, weekend.

The intense lobby by most of the state governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party to get the national chairman of the party sacked has been traced to the  battle between the governors on one hand and the presidency on the other over who flies the party’s presidential flag in the 2015 presidential elections.

PDP Chairman, Bamanga Tukur

PDP Chairman, Bamanga Tukur

The decision of the President to support the embattled chairman, it was gathered, is predicated on the fact that some of the governors in the forefront of the Bamanga Must Go agitation are equally interested in contesting for the presidency come 2015, hence the agitation is deemed as self serving and not in the overall interest of the party

Sources informed that whereas the governors want to seize control of the party, the Chairman of the party thinks the presidency should take absolute control of the party as the governors do in their various states, no matter whose ox is gored.

A party stalwart said: “The governors want Bamanga sacked so that they can take absolute control of the party and its soul so that they can dictate to the President and frustrate his ambition of having a go at the presidency in 2015. After all we know those who are bent on succeeding the President by hook or crook among the Governors.”

According to sources in the party, all was well between the governors and the national chairman of the party until he came up with the idea of the Presidency having full control of all the organs of the party if the President is to succeed with 2015 agenda.

“Initially when information filtered out about the plans of Alhaji Tukur taking control of the national organs of the party for the sake of the president’s ambition, most of the governors considered him as a joker because the National Working Committee and the NEC of the party are populated by nominees of the governors.

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