His assumption of office was as dramatic as it was chaotic. But even at that, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur believed that his rejection at home by the governors of the North-East, was not enough to stop his dream of leading Nigeria’s largest political party.
With President Goodluck Jonathan’s support, protest by the governors against his choice was irrelevant. The governors had preferred a former Acting National Secretary of the party, Dr. Musa Babayo, who hails from Bauchi State.
The governors carried their protest against Tukur to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, after Tukur had been beaten at the party’s shadow election in the North-East zone. Babayo beat Tukur by 14 votes to two. Governors Isa Yuguda, Murtala Nyako and Danbaba Suntai of Bauchi, Adamawa and Taraba states respectively, led the protest.
Tukur and his supporters insisted that the former governor of the old Gongola State was popular across the country. Therefore, he was ready to face the delegates at the Eagles Square, Abuja, on March 24, 2012. Unknown to those who were ready to face him at the poll, those pushing for Tukur’s candidacy kept their game plan close to their chests.
Few minutes before the election, his challengers drawn from across the six states in the zone, were forced to withdraw from the race.
No fewer than 12 aspirants for the position from Gombe, Adamawa, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, and Taraba states were first cajoled, wooed and then forced to step down for him at the Eagle Square. At the end of the convention, Tukur was announced the National Chairman of the PDP.
The discordant tunes that followed his “election” did not stop those opposed to his emergence from giving him initial support. One after the other, governors from across the five geo-political zones, where the party has elected governors, started paying homage to the chairman of their party.
Like a good father, he started preaching reconciliation. He also promised to rebuild and reform the party, because he said he remained one of its founding fathers.
Those who imposed him on the party knew why he was given the job. That opportunity to prove their relevance came during the election into the office of the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. Probably because of the controversies surrounding his emergence, Tukur took sides with those who preferred appointment as against election.
Although, the two contestants for the position were members of his party, Tukur and the Presidency pitched their tent with Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State, while the then incumbent, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, was treated like a leper.
As fate would have it, PDP’s rejected stone, Amaechi, was more popular among his colleagues than his opponent, and he won the election.
Jang would have none of it. He declared himself Chairman, on the strength of the support he enjoyed from the PDP leadership, the Presidency and some of his colleagues.
PDP governors, who joined their opposition colleagues to vote for Amaechi, were tagged the enemies of the party, its leadership and the Presidency.
Tukur fired the first salvo. A few days after Amaechi won the election, the party announced the governor’s suspension. When the hullabaloo that followed his suspension had yet to die down, another governor from his camp, Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State, was also suspended. Although the party later rescinded its decision to suspend Wamakko, it ensured that Amaechi’s suspension was not lifted.
If Tukur could be accused of executing the President’s agenda through these suspensions, he also pursued a personal agenda when he sought to stamp his authority in Adamawa, his home state.
Before now, the governors of the party had accused him of high-handedness and undue interference in their territories. Tukur ignored the concerns of these governors and went ahead to dissolve the executive committee of the party in Adamawa and installed a caretaker committee. Even the intervention of a committee, headed by the Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido, was not enough to change Tukur’s mind.
As the governors began grumbling, there were also rumblings among the members of the National Working Committee of the party. The members were not happy with the way Tukur was running the party. One of them accused Tukur of running the party like “his personal estate.”
Tukur fought back
The National Secretary of the party, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who was identified as the backbone of his accusers, was removed from office by the courts. Some zonal officers of the party from the South-West were also replaced based on court judgments. There are several cases in court concerning this and other issues affecting the party.
Curiously, the same legal tussle led to the resignation of some of the party’s national officers. A majority of the officers however returned to their offices after political horse trading.
As the chairman tried to show that there was cohesion within the party, the aggrieved governors embarked on several consultative meetings with prominent Nigerians. The conduct and utterances of the aggrieved governors after each of these visits exposed the extent of the division within the party.
The aggrieved governors are among members of the party, who stormed out of the PDP Special Convention, to form a factional New PDP the same day.
Under the leadership of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, seven governors -Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); Sule Lamido (Jigawa); Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers); Aliyu Babangida (Niger); Abdulfatai Ahmed (Kwara); Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); and Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), were among party loyalists who teamed up to form the group.
All these governors except Amaechi, who was still serving his suspension from the party, were at the Eagles Square, venue of the party’s special convention before they left in anger.
Five of the aggrieved governors, except Aliyu and Lamido, have since joined the All Progressives Congress while 37 members of the House of Representatives have also left the PDP. In all these, the former chairman and his advisers did not see anything wrong with the party and the way it was being administered.
The arrow that finally pierced Tukur’s leadership came from an unsuspecting corner when his enemies mobilised the 37 state chairmen of the party, who, at an emergency meeting, rejected his continued leadership of the party a few days before the inglorious end of his administration. One of the chairmen, who spoke with our correspondent but asked not to be named, said with this decision, Tukur would have no option but to resign before or at the National Executive Committee of the meeting that was held in Abuja, on Thursday.
Even among his 12-member NWC, Tukur was no longer popular as eight of them refused to attend a meeting he convened to discuss the party’s affairs. Majority of the national officers of the party were within the premises but refused to honour Tukur’s summons.
The erstwhile national chairman of the party was however joined by three other officers, namely, the National Secretary, Prof. Wale Oladipo; National Treasurer, Bala Buhari, and the National Auditor, Mr. Adewole Adeyanju.
With this, it was apparent that his time was up. This became evident when members of the NEC of the party roared in agreement when President Jonathan announced Tukur’s resignation from the position of national chairman on Thursday last week.
The President made the announcement while speaking at the party’s 63rd NEC meeting, which was held at its national secretariat. Jonathan, who acknowledged that there were challenges in the party, said Tukur had agreed to leave the scene in order to restore normalcy.
He said he would leave the meeting with the former chairman and allow the deputy national chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus, continue with proceedings.
The President said, “On some of the issues that we have internally, because I wouldn’t want to waste too much of your time, myself and the chairman would leave you and the deputy chairman will coordinate and the meeting will progress to discuss other things.
“The chairman and I will go to State House for some issues that we need to discuss. We have some internal problems that have been agitating the minds of the people and let us really thank the working committee led by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
“They have done very well; the chairman of our party, we have all known he didn’t just wake up to be chairman of our party, he has paid his dues.
“He had held several offices and worked for this country and he has done very well. For us to make sure that we rest these issues, the party chairman agreed to step aside.”
As soon as he said this, the ovation which followed was deafening as the NEC members gave a round of applause with so much excitement. That was how the curtain was drawn on Tukur’s reign. This was a man, who had a few hours before, vowed not to relinquish the throne, boasting that even Jonathan couldn’t remove him from office.
Olusola Fabiyi
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