Time ticks for Ogbulafor

From TAIWO AMODU,
Palpable tension enveloped the national secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abuja yesterday as news filtered in that its embattled National Chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, has tendered his resignation letter.

Ogbulafor, who is facing graft charges in an Abuja High Court, has been under intense pressure to throw in the towel as his trial is viewed as a moral burden on the party.

The PDP governors on Wednesday night allegedly traded Ogbulafor off to have President Goodluck Jonathan choose one of them, Namadi Sambo, the Kaduna State governor, as Vice President.
Ogbulafor was not at Wadata Plaza, the party national secretariat yesterday, but his Special Adviser on Media, Chijioke Adindu, was sighted, but he declined comments.

Both the National Secretary, Alhaji Kawu Baraje and the National Legal Adviser, Chief Olusola Oke, could not confirm the development, as they told journalists they were not aware of the resignation of the embattled National Chairman.

Baraje told newsmen that Ogbulafor was still in consultation with the South-East governors, who had asked him to resign before Wednesday’s enlarged forum of the PDP governors at Asokoro. “He hasn’t resigned. He cannot resign without you [newsmen] hearing. I cannot confirm that to you now. All I can tell you is that he is on consultations with governors from his zone. The outcome will tell us whether he has resigned or not.”

The PDP National Secretary dismissed the stance that Ogbulafor’s trial was a moral burden on the PDP.
“He hasn’t been convicted. The court process is still on. The only snag is that the governors from the zone where the National Chairman comes from, asked him to resign, even when the court process is still on,” Baraje told journalists.

Daily Sun, however, reliably gathered that a group, G-84, is plotting to use the exit of Ogbulafor to alter the PDP zoning arrangement. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had told a foreign news organ, the Voice of America, while in the United States, recently that the ruling party never had an understanding to zone elective offices among the geo-political zones in the country.

The G-84, a Daily Sun source revealed, is canvassing that the elective offices be thrown open to give room to merit. Under the PDP constitution, in the event of the resignation of the National Chairman, he hands over his resignation letter to his deputy, who will then present it to the National Executive Council (NEC).

The incumbent Deputy National Chairman, Dr. Mohammed Haliru Bello is from Kebbi State in the North-West.
The G-84, a group made up of substantially of the PDP NEC members are banking on the emergence of Bello, as the Chairman in the event of Ogbulafor’s exit to proclaim that the party’s zoning arrangement has not been fundamentally altered, while still maintaining that zoning should be jettisoned.

The group wants an arrangement that would see Dr Bello preside over the party, pending the national convention that would throw up new leaders at Wadata Plaza. Under the eight years of Obasanjo from the South-West, the party had Solomon Lar, Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh and Ahmadu Ali, all of northern extraction as National Chairman.

Ogbulafor emerged as consensus candidate under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, while the National Secretary went to the incumbent Baraje from Kwara State in the North-Central geo-political zone.
Permutations of the G-84 were, however, punctured by Chief Oke yesterday. Speaking with Daily Sun, Oke declared that it was not automatic that the Deputy National Chairman should take over leadership in the event of the chairman’s resignation.

“It would not arise. We have an election, which produced the National Working Committee (NWC). The party’s constitution is not like Nigerian constitution. If Ogbulafor resigns, the NEC would meet and pick someone from his zone, where Ogbulafor comes from. In PDP his deputy cannot finish his term,” Oke said.
Meanwhile, Daily Sun investigation revealed that those being pencilled for replacement to Ogbulafor are former National Secretary of the party, Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo from Enugu State and Ambassador Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigerian ambassador to Togo, who is from Abia State.

The source further revealed that what could count against Nwodo’s emergence is the party’s constitution, which stipulates that a new entrant to the party could not seek elective office, until after two years of membership of PDP. “Nwodo, the former National Secretary of the PDP, defected from the party to the Action Congress (AC), only to return to the party of recent. That could be a snag to his emergence, except it is waived,” the source said.

Source: the sun newspaper nigeria