Nosike Ogbuenyi in Lagos, Funso Muraina, Christopher Isiguzo and Chuks Okocha
5 March 2008
Abuja — The last is yet to be heard about the holding of Saturday's National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at which new national executives of the party are to be elected.
This is because a Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja High Court hearing a suit seeking to stop the convention has adjourned further hearing in the suit till Friday, March 4, the eve of the election, following complaints by respondents that they were not served court processes.
Also, last minute scheming by power forces within PDP over who emerges national chairman continued yesterday with the names of three contestants topping the list of those being considered as compromise candidates.
They are former minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Frank Ogbuewu from Ebonyi, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu from Imo and Ambassador Ogbonnaya Aja-Nwachukwu also from Ebonyi.
The pendulum appeared to be swinging in their favour following moves by PDP governors to dump the two erstwhile front-runners, former Ebonyi State governor, Dr. Sam Egwu, and former Senate President, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim.
Ambassador Aja is the younger brother of Mr. Aja Nwachukwu, the incumbent minister of Education, while Izuogu was a chieftain of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the aborted Third Republic.
The application seeking to stop PDP's convention slated for March 8 was brought by three chieftains of the party.
The plaintiffs argue that the party's National Chairman, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, and his executive committee had resigned their appointments and were not competent to organise the convention.
Justice Ishaq Bello adjourned hearing in the suit till Friday and subsequently revoked his earlier order directing that the respondents be served all court processes in the case through the office of PDP.
The judge said he was misled by the plaintiffs into granting the order of substituted service.
Hundreds of party supporters thronged the court premises yesterday carrying placards condemning the national leadership of the party.
Justice Bello also granted an order joining a chairmanship aspirant of the party, Dr. Tony Anyanwu, as a defendant in the case.
Anyanwu had told the court he had bought application form to contest the chairmanship position and that a lot had been done including the fixing of date for the party's convention.
He said whatever decision the court takes in the case would affect his interest.
The party chieftains seeking to halt the convention are Alhaji Abdullahi Maibirgi, Chief Iroha C Iroha and Hajia Asmau Ahmed.
Justice Bello explained that he was made to grant the order when the plaintiff said all respondents in the case could be served through the office of PDP.
Justice Bello however ordered the party chieftains to serve all court processes on all the respondents afresh.
The defendants ordered to be served are the PDP; chairman of the party, Ali; Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Olusegun Obasanjo; Deputy National Chairman and Chairman Convention Planning Committee, Chief Olabode George, and National Secretary, Chief Bernard Eze.
Others are the immediate past National Secretary of PDP, Chief Ojo Maduekwe; Chairman National Convention Electoral Panel of the PDP, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In the suit filed through their counsel, Mr. Festus Keyamo, the members said in a bid to pollute the democratic process of the party, that some principal officers of the party hurriedly convened an illegal convention on the 16th of December, 2006 where they allegedly amended the 2001 party constitution.
The members said the National Working Committee of the party was not legally competent to appoint the Convention Organising Committee, Congress Appeal Panel and Convention Monitoring Committee.
They argued that NWC by appointing members of the committee had taken over the function of the National Executive Committee of the party.
Speaking with journalists, counsel to the plaintiffs, Keyamo, said something was wrong with internal democracy within PDP, adding that the plaintiffs were relying on the court to correct the error and put the party on the part of sanity.
Among others, the plaintiffs are asking the court for a declaration "that the 2nd, 4th and 5th defendants having duly resigned from their respective positions as national chairman, deputy national chairman (South) and national secretary of the party could not legally constitute and participate in the NEC meeting of 28 January, 2008 which purportedly set convention and congresses, and consequently said the NEC meeting including the scheduled convention is irregular, wrongful, null and void and of no effect whatsoever."
On the chairmanship race, Ogbuewu, Izuogu and Aja-Nwachuku are being considered by the PDP governors because they are said to be candidates who can pull the party together.
But it was also learnt that all hope may not be lost with respect to Egwu's candidacy following counter moves by forces behind his aspiration.
Obasanjo, who is a prominent backer of the former Ebonyi governor, was said by a source close to the Governors Forum to have launched fresh overtures towards the governors to sway them to back Egwu.
As part of the bargain, he was said to have backed down on his support for the candidacy of Senator Tunde Ogbeha from Kogi State for the national secretary post.
Sources said Obasanjo, who was visibly apprehensive over the prospect of Egwu being edged out by the governors, had to soft-pedal on his support for Ogbeha.
A top PDP source told THISDAY yesterday that it was a case of "you- rub-my -back- I- rub-yours."
The source disclosed that Egwu's case was also helped by the fact that he was acceptable to many of the governors being an ex-colleague.
As for Anyim, his major albatross is said to be the aversion for his candidature by the Ali-led out-going PDP National Working Committee (NWC) and the BOT chairman, Obasanjo.
Sources said Anyim may be ambushed at the screening stage where he would be checkmated with the clause in the party's constitution dealing with membership.
Among the criteria to be fulfilled by aspirants for the posts of national chairman or secretary of the party is that they must have been active members of the party for at least a period not less than two years preceding the date of the convention.
Meanwhile, the Governors' Forum is to meet again tomorrow to look at the recommendation of the River State Governor Rotimi Amaechi Screening panel mandated to screen all the chairmanship aspirants.
The PDP governors after their meeting at the Kwara state Governor's Lodge on Sunday night set up the Amaechi panel.
At their initial meeting on Monday in Abuja, Enugu State Governor, Mr. Sullivan Chime, was asked to meet all the stakeholders in the South-east and come up with a consensus candidate.
Meanwhile, members of the South-east Zone of PDP may have dropped the idea of endorsing a consensus candidate from the area for the National chairmanship position of the party.
Newly elected National vice- Chairman of the PDP, South-east zone, Chief Olisa Metuh, gave hint of this when he declared that only President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua would decide who would become the next National Chairman of the party.
Speaking to newsmen shortly after the zonal congress of the party held at the Hotel Presidential, Enugu yesterday, Metuh who defeated the former women leader and wife of the immediate past chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party, Chief Tony Anenih, Mrs. Josephine Anenih, to emerge the new zonal chairman stated that since the zone had failed to reach a consensus on the national chairmanship of the party, it was now left for the president to take the final decision. He however reaffirmed the sub-zoning of the post to Ebonyi and Imo states by the zonal caucus.
Metuh, who was the former National Auditor of the party, noted that the zone had made efforts to see the possibility of encouraging the emergence of a consensus candidate but could not achieve any tangible result, adding that though the zonal congress had come and gone, the possibility of choosing a candidate was still not over.
"We could not reach a consensus on the National Chairmanship. There was no discussion on that. For now all the aspirants will be going to the National Convention, by that I mean those screened and cleared by the National Screening Committee. Let all our delegates to the National Convention look at all the aspirants and vote according to their conscience, unless, otherwise directed," he advised.
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