I’ll not quit as PDP chairman till 2016 – Tukur...

PREMIUM TIMES

PDP CHAIRMAN, CHIEF BAMANGA TUKUR

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bamanga Tukur, on Thursday said he was not ready to take up an ambassadorial position because he had not completed his tenure as the national chairman of the ruling party. He stated this when a team of PDP youth drawn from 19 northern states paid him a solidarity visit at his Abuja residence.
Mr. Tukur was elected in March 2012 for a four-year tenure.
There were reports at the weekend that the presidency had pencilled the national chairman down for an ambassadorial position following the protracted crisis in the PDP.
The reports said the agenda was being pushed by the governors elected on the platform of the party who were not comfortable with the increasing defection of their members to other parties, especially the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Mr. Tukur, however, debunked the reports, which suggested that he was being considered for an ambassadorial position as a way of easing him out of his job.
According to him, there was no iota of truth in the reports which he described as figment of the imagination of their authors, stressing that the presidency never contemplated sending him out of the country as an ambassador under any guise.
He told the youth, led by Galadima Yahya, that he was not distracted by the sustained campaign of calumny against him, the PDP and the Presidency, more so when the source of such campaign had been traced to familiar quarters.
“I have a job to do as the PDP Chairman, and I cannot throw in the towel in the middle of it just because certain individuals known for selfish motives get to the media to fund fictitious report often crafted to precipitate crises in our party and ultimately cause its fall,” Mr. Tukur said.
He described the crises within the party as a phase that would pass away once preparations for 2015 general elections begins.
“The crises we are witnessing in PDP are about 2015. The promoters are members who wanted to be President at all costs, they are those who wanted to be vice President at all costs and those who wanted to seek re-election as governors. Most of them felt if there was no crisis, their different ambitions would not be fulfilled,” he stated.
Mr. Tukur said the National Working Committee, NWC, of PDP had always meant to institute reforms meant to deepen democratic ethos in the party.
According to him, efforts by the committee to kick start the process had consistently been rebuffed by members who, he said were averse to reforms.
“If you check it very well, the people who say Tukur must go cannot lay hand on one reason to justify their wish,” the national chairman said.
“I did nothing to violate the constitution of the party. I did nothing to wrong anyone. I did nothing to soil my hands in anything. My conscience vindicates me every time. So I am free as the PDP National Chairman.
“Now some people said I am not a friend of the governors. But they forgot that during my campaign, I visited all of them one by one to sell my programmes for the party. We started with the process of reconciliation and asked estranged members to return to the party. Some people opposed it.”
Mr. Tukur said the party resolved that internal democracy should start with transparent elections and in some cases, consensus, adding that those who opposed reform preferred selection and imposition of candidates during elections.
“They preferred the way of dictatorship rather than being democratic. And when these are not allowed, then they say Tukur must go,” he lamented.
Mr. Tukur urged members of the PDP to key into the agenda of reform in order to make the party Nigeria’s strongest and most dependable.
He argued that it was only when Nigeria had a strong ruling party that the government could be strong, stressing, “A strong government would always produce a strong economy, and then a strong society. That is why we are always behind President Goodluck Jonathan to succeed.”
Mr. Tukur asked party faithful to put behind them issues about crises within the party and brace up for the challenges of taming the opposition ahead of the coming general elections.
He said he was convinced that Nigeria had no alternative to PDP, adding that the opposition party had not developed the capacity and the wisdom to manage Nigeria effectively like the PDP.
He asked Nigerians not to give the opposition the opportunity to govern the country because they would cause chaos.