National chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has chided the speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and the seven governors who broke away recently.
Tukur said Tambuwal was unfair to him when he suggested that Tukur should resign. He also blasted the seven governors as being selfish politicians who created the crisis in the party to achieve their selfish aims.
It would be recalled that Tambuwal recently said it would be hard for the ruling party to record any success in the 2015 general elections if its leadership failed to find a way of bringing back the seven state governors that broke away at the party’s mini-convention last month.
Tambuwal, who was addressing the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, said had been one problem after the other in the PDP since Tukur’s assumption of office as the party’s national chairman.
However, Tukur said Tambuwal should be asked what he (Tukur) had done wrong to be persuaded to resign. “I want to say it to all Nigerians that I am not a problem to my party. Yes, I am not a problem to PDP, but if Tambuwal thinks that I am a problem to our great party, ask him to tell me what I have done wrong to warrant his comments about me. I challenge him to come out openly and mention one single thing that I have done to show that I am the problem that will make the party fail in 2015.
“I am not going to resign because I was elected and given the mandate as national chairman of our great party by our members. I am not going to bother myself about the stupid calls for my resignation. The mandate that I have now is to reconcile our people; my mandate is to take our party to greater height; my mandate is also to build Nigeria.”
On the issue of factions in the party, Tukur said that there was nothing like factional PDP, as only one PDP is recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian citizens. He added that any other group that called itself PDP was committing a criminal offence.
On the demand of the G-7 governors are making as solutions to the crisis rocking the ruling party, Tukur said that such demand is selfish and is not in the good interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.
He said: “What issues have the G-7 governors raised and why are they telling the president to ask the EFCC not to investigate them again? Anybody that has issues with the EFCC should be investigated, and nobody should try to cover his/her evil deeds under the pretence of giving any conditions for making peace in the party. Whoever that has any corruption case among them should allow the security agents do their job by doing proper investigations”.