Our correspondents learnt in Abuja on Monday, however, that while Jonathan had agreed with the request for removing Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the second republic governor of the old Gongola State as chairman of the ruling party, the President had yet to be satisfied with any of the possible replacements being suggested to him.
Some of the names said to have been suggested to the President include those of a former Governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Adamu Mua’zu and Dr. Musa Babayo, who emerged as the PDP chairman at the North-East congress in 2012.
It was gathered that while Jonathan rejected Mua’zu because of his closeness to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, the President was said to have expressed the fear that Babayo was “too close to the governors” and could hijack the party from him.
Atiku’s son, Mohammed, got married to the daughter of Mua’zu, Malama Badariya, in June.
A member of the PDP National Working Committee who spoke in confidence with one of our correspondents said, “From all indications, both the President and the governors have agreed that Tukur should go.
“Although the governors have tipped Mua’zu and Babayo, the two candidates are not acceptable to the President.
“Jonathan wants Tukur to stay until a good replacement is found for him. He does not want to lose the control of the party because of the governors’ desperate move to sack Tukur.”
As a ploy to stall the removal of Tukur, the President was said to be insisting that the governors should wait for the outcome of the party’s mini-convention before taking a final decision on Tukur.
As a ‘Plan B’, it was learnt that the President was banking on the emergence of Chief Uche Secondus as deputy national chairman to check Tukur.
The second leg of the plan, it was learnt, would see the President appointing Secondus as the deputy to continue to act as national chairman in the event that Tukur is still pushed out after the convention.
Jonathan, under the plan, would refuse the possible appointment of a substantive national chairman thus allowing Secondus to conduct the party’s presidential primaries for the 2015 election.
Secondus, a former National Organising Secretary of the PDP, hails from Rivers State and he is a close ally of Jonathan.
He aspired to be the deputy national chairman during the last national convention of the party but did not receive the backing of his state governor, RotimiAmaechi.
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