2015: TAMBUWAL’S MEN UNDER WATCH

                                
…As PDP’s axe dangles on guber aspirants
Ten days to the close of pur¬chase of nomination forms by governorship aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there are fresh facts that some aspirants may be prevented from flying the party’s flag during the forthcoming general elections.
Daily Sun learnt that while some aspirants will be stopped at the party primaries, a few others who had been endorsed as consensus candidates by some outgoing state governors may be screened out. It was also gathered that the PDP hierarchy and the Presidency are op¬posed to some persons who purport¬edly worked against the interests and directives of the above organs to vie for the governorship elections. This, Daily Sun gathered, explained why the PDP made a public declaration against the endorsement of some aspirants by governors and the state PDP.
According to a source, “the time has come to show that loyalty to the party pays. The party is not going to reward someone or those people who worked against its interest in the past to become its candidates. Otherwise, what message are you sending to those who were loyal and carried out the party’s directives?
“I’ll give you just one example to buttress what I’m mean. You may say it belongs to the past but you see, during the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal), there were some PDP members in the House who worked against the party’s direc¬tives and by extension, against the Presidency. Today, some of them are aspiring to contest governorship elections in their states. I concede it to them that it is their constitutional rights but we will, as a party, speak at the appropriate time on the sorts of people who will and will not fly the party’s flag,” the source affirmed.
It is against this backdrop and the need to ensure that their favoured candidates get both the party and se¬curity clearances that has propelled some of the outgoing PDP governors who have been visiting Abuja to ascertain if their preferred successors have issues.
For instance, Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta and others espe-cially from the North have people they favour but have kept sealed lips on their preferred successors, while also working underground to ascertain if their anointed candi¬dates would scale through party and security screening when the chips are down.
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Emeka Ihedioha has mounted a strong cam¬paign to win the Imo State governor¬ship primary and has also won the support of some influential politi¬cians. Sources revealed however, that the presidency has not forgiven him for his role during the election of Tambuwal as speaker.
Similarly, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi representing Udenu/Igbo Eze South federal constituency, who was re¬cently endorsed as the PDP guberna¬torial candidate for Enugu State also has the same problem with the presidency. He was said to be one of the strong supporters and financiers of the speaker’s emer¬gence against the Presidency’s preferred choice and the party’s firm directive on the matter.
Though he, like Ihedioha, has been trying to reach out to the Presidency through emissaries, President Goodluck Jonathan is said not to have forgiven him for his alleged involvement in influencing how the lawmakers voted during that ill-fated elec¬tion that dislodged the Presi¬dent’s annointed candidate.
Our source further disclosed that Nigerians will be shocked by the outcomes of the party primaries across the states be¬cause “it will be suicidal for us as a party to hand over our tick¬et to people who worked against our party before now and whose allegiance is elsewhere. No mat¬ter what they profess today, we are mindful of what they can do tomorrow.
“If the President and our party are disposed to our outgoing governors having a big role in deciding their successors, they must give us credible and acceptable candidates or alternatives. Otherwise, we are not obliged to accept their sole choices if they don’t satisfy our criteria, one of which is loyalty to the party.”
Source: Sun