PDP Governors Want One of Them As President In 2015 – Adamawa Elders

Political elders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Adamawa State have described the continuous intervention of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum in the Adamawa PDP crisis as a ploy to hijack the party and present one of them as a presidential candidate in 2015.
At a press briefing in Abuja on Sunday, the PDP elders urged President Goodluck Jonathan to move fast to save the party from the tyranny of the governors before it is too late.
On behalf of the group, Dr. Umar Ardo, an antagonist of Governor Murtala Nyako, said the governors were using the Adamawa crisis to test their might to see how far they can go in using it to destabilize the National Secretariat of the PDP so as to project their own interest in 2015.
He said, “It is all about 2015. Anybody that tells you anything contrary is not sincere, they want to impose one of them as the presidential candidate of the party in 2015 and that is why they are defying what the people and the president want.”
The elders also said they would not recognize the newly constituted “PDP committee on Adamawa Crisis and Resolution” as they do not know who established it, and describing the committee as “mysterious.”
Ardo said they only saw an advert on the pages of newspapers asking members to submit memoranda to the committee but that they do not know who set the committee up and what it is supposed to do.
The elders said that as long as the committee remains mysterious, they will not recognize it and will work only with the newly elected executive committee of the party led by Joel Madaki.
Dr. Ardo said however that they will recognize the new committee if they’re told clearly who set it up and the legal provision that enables the committee to function.
“If it is the president, let us see a statement from the presidency, if it is from the National Working Committee of the party let’s see a statement from the national chairman of the party saying so. But if it is from the Oyinlola gang of 10 then there’s no way we can recognize and as far as we are concerned, it is dead on arrival.
“There ought to be a letter from the presidency saying so if it is actually from the president and if it is from the party then there should be a statement from the national working committee but we cannot just wake up and see a committee from the blues asking us to submit memoranda.”
The elders said they would defy the committee and continue their work of building the party in Adamawa since Nyako also defied the NWC of the party when it set up the Amb. Umar Damagun-led caretaker committee and went ahead to accord recognition to the Kugama led committee.