Ahead the November 15 National Convention of the peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Jigawa state former governor, Sule Lamido has threatened to sue his party. His reason is that he’s unable to purchase the form to contest for the position of the National Chairman.
If the former governor went ahead to sue the party, as he has threatened, PDP problem may be further complicated, analysts insist as it’s trying to wriggle out of the court case instituted by some angry members of the party who are threatening to stop the Convention from holding.
The former governor is one of the founding fathers of the party, and has been resolute in his call for unity and reconciliation among the leaders of the party, despite the protracted leadership crisis that’s threatened to destabilize the party ahead the next month National Delegates Convention.
Lamido lamented the problem he faced in purchasing the form on Monday when he went to the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
According to him, he met the party’s National Secretary and National Organizing Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu and Umar Bature who told him they could not help him, as the forms were not available with them.
The former governor had therefore warned that he would sue the party to court if he’s prevented from obtaining the form to contest the party’s highest position at the National Convention slated for next month in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.
“If I don’t get the form, I will go to court”, he said while speaking to journalists over his frustration.
His warning is coming barely a week after the major PDP stakeholders from the 19 northern states disclosed that they have agreed to present a former Minister, Taminu Turaki, a senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN as a consensus candidate for the position.
Governor Umar Fintiri of Adamwa state, who is also the Chairman of the Convention Organising Committee made the position of the stakeholders known in Abuja, last week saying the party will however not prevent other candidates from contesting, saying it’s their democratic right to do so, noting that the party’s Constitution supports the stakeholders position on the matter.
“That is what our constitution says. Anybody is still free to contest but our candidate is Turaki”, the governor stated.
Fintiri’s position on the issue however appears not to have gone down well with other major stakeholders such as Lamido who believes that they were not carried along in the decision to make Turaki the Consensus candidate.
The former governor was among PDP leaders from the North west zone, who rejected Turaki last week as a consensus candidate for the position of National Chairman.
Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday night, the party’s National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, who spoke on behalf of the Zone said the purported endorsement did not reflect the collective decision of stakeholders from the North-West, saying the choice of Turaki was unilateral and bereft of consultation with other key stakeholders from the region.
“The North-West has not met to agree on that position. What we want to make clear is that this zone has not adopted anybody as a candidate for the position of PDP National Chairman,” he said.
Bature explained that the North-West stakeholders were yet to hold any formal meeting to decide on a consensus candidate, stressing that the process should involve wide consultation among leaders of the zone.
“Consensus is achieved through consultation. We were not consulted before the announcement was made. The meeting that was supposed to hold yesterday at the instance of the Zamfara governor was postponed, and yet a candidate was adopted without the zone’s input.
“We are the strongest zone in the PDP, and we disagree with the decision announced by the governors. We will have our own candidate whom we will nominate for the position,” Bature stated.
Apart from Bature, other key PDP leaders and stakeholders present at the Abuja briefing included former National Secretary Ibrahim Tsauri, the PDP’s 2023 Kaduna governorship candidate, Isa Ashiru Kudan, and Mustapha Lamido, the former governors’ son.
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