PDP: Mu’azu returns from the cold
Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) Monday, January 20th, 2014Gov Yuguda & MuazuThe emergence of former Governor Adamu Mu‘azu as the new chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP yesterday, was a convergence of interests of the principal stakeholders of the party: notably the governors and the president. He is a bridge between the many divides in a crises ridden party.By Emmanuel Aziken, Political EditorIt was a shock for many that Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State was the one who presented Governor Adamu Mu‘azu, regarded as the governor’s most formidable political foe as the consensus candidate of the Northeast for the post yesterday.The appointment of Mu‘azu also defied other permutations that had earlier narrowed the search for a national chairman to states outside the immediate control of the party in the northeast. The states that had been highly favoured were Borno, Yobe and Adamawa which are all now controlled by governors belonging to the All Progressives Congress, APC.The thinking was that the party should choose a formidable PDP chairman from any one of the APC controlled states to act as counter force to the APC governors in the Northeast. Also, given the historical frictions between incumbent PDP governors and recent national chairmen, there were also reasonable grounds for all four PDP governors from the Northeast to object to the emergence of a national chairman from their states. It was even more shocking that Mu‘azu, known for his famous face-off with his one time friend, Governor Isa Yuguda at the time of the 2007 gubernatorial election, became the choice of the party.Elements around the president Mu‘azu got the job ahead of Mohammed Wakil who was being pushed by elements around the president and also, Senator Idris Umar who was allegedly the candidate of the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan. Mu‘azu’s ascent to the job was cleared first by the resolve of the PDP states chairmen to oppose any candidate sponsored by Mrs. Jonathan. Their beef was that the immediate past chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur was sustained in office far longer than he ought to have exited by the support he allegedly received from Mrs. Jonathan and her husband, President Goodluck Jonathan.“This idea of first lady bringing somebody will be seriously resisted among the chairmen who feel that Tukur stayed that long because of the overt support he was enjoying from the First Lady.”“The decision that was finally taken on Thursday, (resignation of Tukur) if it had been taken about four, five months ago, the state chairmen feel that only one governor would have gone and that would have been Amaechi, all other governors who left were complaining about Tukur and his style of administration as characterised by the unwarranted dissolution of state excos and planting his own structures in those states and that if this decision was taken about five months ago, the party would have been saved the embarrassment of the five governors leaving at the same time,” one of the state chairmen told Vanguard ahead of the meeting.Initial enthusiasm One of the chairmen of the states told Vanguard last weekend. So, given the determination of the state PDP chairmen to oppose Umar, it was not surprising that the initial enthusiasm that followed his candidacy evaporated.Following him, was the inspired candidacy of Wakil, the pioneer Majority Leader of the House of Representatives in the Fourth Republic. Wakil, who is one of the leading PDP chieftains from Borno State fitted into the plans of those who canvassed for a PDP chairman from a non-PDP controlled state. His candidacy was reportedly initially pushed by Governor Serikae Dickson of Bayelsa State, a development that made some to believe that he was the man being backed by the president.One of the presiding officers of the National Assembly, also came in to support Wakil gravitating his campaign to a phenomenon before other major stakeholders focused on the capacity of the candidate. And it was upon that President Jonathan apparently drew his joker in the form of Mu‘azu, the former governor of Bauchi State.Reputed for his open heartedness and linkages across the country’s various divides, Mu‘azu found himself into the president’s good books as a result of his kindness to Jonathan at the peak of the daggers-drawn campaign to remove Dipereye Alamasieyeha when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC mobilized the then Bayelsa State House of Assembly to impeach the governor in 2005.Though the principal beneficiary of the moves against Alamieyeseigha, Dr. Jonathan the then deputy governor of the state, reportedly took refuge in Bauchi State where he found good comfort in the Yankari Games Reserve. It was a kind of goodness that Dr. Jonathan could not have paid back to the then governor.Besides the alleged bitterness between Mu‘azu and Governor Yuguda, were also matters of vice that the latter had supposedly hung on Mu‘azu, at the peak of their quarrel. One of the highlights of the white paper produced following the submission of the report of the panel of enquiry instituted by Governor Yuguda on the Mu‘azu administration, was a stipulation that the former governor should not hold office for ten years.It was an issue that Mu‘azu perhaps would have waived aside and President Jonathan certainly did when he appointed Mu‘azu as the chairman of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA when he came into office.Following that appointment, the issue of the indictment perhaps stuck Mu‘azu in the face when he made his first bid for the office of national chairman of the PDP in 2012. At that time the issue of the indictment was used to campaign against him by his opponents and it was perhaps at that time that the need for a political solution to the issue became obvious.Sources close to the two men said that President Jonathan became a sort of intermediary between the two men and helped in no small way to calm the anger of Governor Yuguda towards his former friend. Following the failed bid for the national chairmanship, Mu‘azu approached a Bauchi High Court to discharge the indictment stopping him from holding a political office.Within three months the indictment was discharged in April 2013 and in the spirit of the détente with Yuguda, the Bauchi State government did not appeal the judgment. Mu‘azu on his part has also played along with the new political configuration and again became conspicuous in the affairs of the Yuguda administration. When the governor lost his immediate junior sister, Hafsat Yuguda Ibrahim last October, Mu‘azu was a very conspicuous presence in receiving visitors on behalf of the governor.National chairman But then few expected the governor to condole Mu‘azu as national chairman. However, once the president made his bearing known on Mu‘azu, sources said that the governor had few options. But Mu‘azu was, however, brought to an understanding that as national chairman he would not alter the evolving arrangement around Yuguda’s camp to enthrone the erstwhile deputy national secretary of the party, Dr. Musa Babayo as successor in 2015. Babayo is from Katagum in Bauchi North, a zone the incumbent governor has favoured for his succession. The presidential villa, it was learnt, also put that point to Mu‘azu.CHALLENGES As national chairman, Mu‘azu is to head a party that is fighting to regain its supremacy across the country. His relative youth and linkages across the nation’s religious and geopolitical divides are bound to be assets to the party.Mu‘azu’s success as a governor underpinned by his landmark physical and infrastructure development projects including the full electrification of Bauchi State under his tenure gives the assurance of a man with a vision. But in a party where only the pioneer chairman Chief Solomon Lar, now late exited gracefully, Mu‘azu needs every grace available to a politician. – See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/01/pdp-muazu-returns-cold/#sthash.lVcIfHbJ.dpuf
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