New PDP Aftermath: Gambo Lawan To Replace Tukur in OLD PDP

As President Goodluck Jonathan and elders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) prepare to meet governors, who held a parallel convention at the weekend, it has been gathered that a party leader during the regime of the late General Sani Abacha, may take over the leadership of the ruling party in an acting capacity.

Following the crisis, which engulfed the PDP since Saturday, when seven governors and former vice president Atiku Abubakar led other aggrieved members to hold a meeting, where they appointed a chairman for their faction, PDP elders had set up a meeting, as one of the last- ditch effort to resolve the impasse.

The governors, made up of Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), had rejected goings-on in the PDP, especially the way the party’s special national convention was conducted and therefore, announced a PDP faction.

Following the governors’ request that the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, should relinquish his position, among other demands, Alhaji Gambo Lawan, chairman of the Grassroots Democratic Party (GDP) during the Abacha administration, has been tipped to become the acting chairman of the party.

Sources revealed that the aggrieved governors, who enjoy the secret support of three former heads of state, would nominate Lawan in the meeting with party elders and if this gets the blessing of all, the former party chairman would oversee the affairs of the PDP, pending when another national convention would be organised for the selection of a substantive national chairman.

Gambo, from Borno State, who bidded for the PDP chair during the exercise that brought Tukur to office, is not privy to the plan for him to emerge as acting national chairman of the party, but those pushing for his nomination said he’s capable of restoring confidence in the party.

Sources however, revealed that for Gambo to be appointed acting national chairman, Tukur would be asked to resign his position, just as Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo did in 2011 when he was embroiled in court case in his home state, Enugu.

It was gathered that Tukur’s resignation would be hinged on the court case instituted by the Abdullahi Kawu Baraje faction of the PDP, which demanded that he should be compelled to stop parading himself as national chairman of the party.

If the court grants the prayer of the Baraje faction, as it resumes sitting on September 9 and grants an injunction restraining Tukur from parading himself as chairman, he would be compelled by PDP elders to resign, the same way Nwodo was asked to go when an Enugu High Court made an order against him.

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