Abuja — The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has told Senators opposed to President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's second term in office that they are on their own.

PDP National Chairman Vincent Ogbulafor, who told journalists yesterday in Abuja that the Senators' views were "individualistic", also expres-sed concern about what he called the declining fortunes of the party in the South-west.

PDP Senators were reported to have asked Senate President David Mark to inform Yar'Adua that they were not happy with the way the country was being run and the state of the economy.

The Senators held a closed door caucus meeting last week in Abuja where they also reportedly told Mark to ask the President to come out clean on the issue of a second term in office.

But Ogbulafor who rose in defence of Yar'Adua over the criticisms by the Senators said: "What they are expressing are individual opinions and they don't represent the views and position of PDP."

The PDP National Chairman expressed worry over the declining fortunes of the party in the South-west, saying "the drift in the South-west is a source of worry and concern for us at the National Secretariat. PDP and the former president (Obasanjo) worked hard to get the South-west states into PDP. But I can assure you that with the due process, which President Yar'Adua has enthroned, they shall come back to PDP fold. It is only Ondo State and Lagos State that is in opposition."

On his reaction to the plan by the progressives to form a mega party for which the group will converge in Lagos today under the leadership of Chief Anthony Enahoro at the meeting of its steering committee, Ogbulafor predicted a failure for the plan.

He said: "Surely, they shall gather, but surely, they shall scatter. We know of the meeting of the proponents of the so-called mega party. My reaction to it is that surely, they shall gather, but surely they must scatter because they are strange bed mates.

"It is not today, we hear of their alliances and now the so-called mega party. But let me tell you that history will always prove us right. They shall gather and scatter with the same speed of their gathering.

"The reason for their gathering and scattering is simple, they have no political relevance any longer and their individual greed will make they scatter."

Ogbulafor also passed a vote of confidence on the party's elected governors, declaring that they were performing above average.

Assessing the PDP governors, he said: "Go to Rivers State and see what Governor Chibuike Amaechi is doing. Go to Ebonyi State and see for yourself what Governor Martins Elechi is doing. The same is true of the governor of Akwa-Ibom and other governors of the party across the country. Every of PDP governors are performing and we at the national secretariat is happy about that."

Specifically, the PDP chairman said: "With the level of performances of our governors in the South-east, I am sure the zone would soon be 100 per cent PDP."

The PDP chairman, however, tied the question of the alleged agitation of PDP governors for automatic return ticket for the 2011 elections to evidence of performance. But he added: "Basically, it is their people that will elect them and the party will respect the views of the electorate in the respective states."

Meanwhile, former Vice-President and Action Congress (AC) candidate in the 2007 presidential election yesterday again launched another attack on the PDP, saying the party would destroy itself.

Speaking through a statement signed by his Media Advisor, Mallam Garba Shehu, Atiku also said he was not desperate to become President.

The statement said the "uncouth, knee-jerked and thoughtless reaction of the PDP leadership to genuine criticism of its monumental failures" was sad and unfortunate.

PDP had on Monday lambasted Atiku, calling him a drowning and hopeless politician for criticising the Federal Government's White Paper on electoral reforms.

Atiku had told Aviation Correspondents in Lagos at the weekend that PDP lacked the capacity to drive the electoral reforms and also pooh-poohed the White Paper on electoral reforms, saying it contained nothing concrete.

In yesterday's statement, Atiku's media advisor said: "For the PDP leadership to have resorted to name-calling and gutter language in response to an opinion voiced by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on the electoral reform shows clearly the level of intolerance in the party.

"It is also an indication of the party's moral bankruptcy and its unwillingness to change its ways. We are witnessing once again in our history the heedless march of an arrogant, visionless party to self-destruction - just like the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

"Our concern stems from the fact that the PDP runs the government at the centre and in a majority of the 36 states of the federation. The PDP must account to Nigerians how and why things are the way they are in the country.

"The PDP does not own Nigeria. That is why we cannot sit back and allow this unruly collection of election riggers and anti-democratic forces to derail our hard-earned democracy or to kill our dreams with mind-boggling ineptitude.

"Atiku Abubakar is not desperate to be President. His criticism of the handling of the electoral reform is borne out of patriotic instinct. Every Nigerian ought to be concerned about the direction in which the PDP is taking the country.

"It is a measure of how low civility has declined in the country that such an innocuous comment by the former Vice-President on the need for genuine electoral reform should elicit insults and unnecessary personal attacks. It is also ironic that the author of that infantile statement claims to be a professor, one of the intellectual dwarfs who now run the party and the nation.

"The PDP offers no hope to Nigeria. It is drowning in a sea of mis-governance. It is therefore not surprising that the PDP is hostile to fundamental electoral reform. The party has now been hijacked by election riggers and do-or-die politicians. This is not the party some of us founded in 1998. "

The former Vice-President said Nigeria urgently needs electoral reforms as contained in the Justice Muhammed Uwais report, stressing that "the government white paper is self-serving., myopic and anti-Nigerian people. The recommendations in the white paper will never guarantee free and fair elections."

When contacted, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Prof. Ahmed Alkali, refused to comment, saying he would not do so until he had seen the statement from Atiku's office.