In an apparent bid to reverse the split in PDP, President Jonathan, on Sunday night, summoned a meeting of governors elected under the platform of the party.
Governors present at the meeting at the time of this report included Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (Kano), Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Idris Wada (Kogi), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Ibrahim Shema (Katsina), Mukhtar Ramallan Yero (Kaduna), Garba Umar (Taraba acting governor), Saidu Dakingari (Kebbi), Theodore Orji (Abia), Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe) and Jonah Jang (Plateau).
Also in attendance was Vice President Namadi Sambo.
The president arrived at the meeting, held at the First Lady wing of the Presidential Villa, at about 9.25 p.m.
Also present were the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim; National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retd) and PDP’s attorney, Mr Joseph Gadzama.
Atiku and some governors who formed splinter group on Sunday took the decision to leave the Eagle Square when President Jonathan refused to intervene in their request for a change in the delegates list used for the convention.
Sources close to the party told the Nigerian Tribune on Sunday that the governors requested to meet with the president for a discussion immediately after his speech at the Eagle Square.
Following the request, Jonathan was said to have asked them and some other PDP governors to meet with him at the basement of the state box of the Eagle Square.
It was gathered that the governors requested a change in the unity list adopted for the convention.
They also requested that the president should intervene and ensure that the position of national organising secretary zoned to the North East was allotted to Kano State, because Kano is bigger than Kaduna, which is being made to produce the seat.
They also believed that the candidate adopted for that seat was a loyalist of Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Besides the seat of the national organising secretary, they also wanted the unity list doctored to accommodate Chief Sam Sam Jaja as deputy national chairman of the Party, while they were said to have equally requested that the president should facilitate the accommodation of the list of delegates prepared by loyalists of the governor of Adamawa State, instead of the one endorsed by the state executive put in place by the National Working Committee (NWC).
Jonathan was, however, said to have rejected the intervention.
According to a governor at the meeting, Jonathan told the agitating governors that the issues being raised were late in the day, as the stage was set for the conduct of free and fair election.
He was also said to have told the governors that they would have raised the issues before the convention date, adding that having promised a transparent process and convention, he would not intervene at that stage.
He also asked them to meet the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, for any further clarifications.
At that stage, the governors, who were said to have arrived the Eagle Square with a two-way agenda, went for plan B, which was to walk out of the convention ground and launch the new PDP.
Besides, it was also gathered that while the agitating governors had only mentioned their disagreement with Tukur as a ground for their agitation, they had, however, confirmed that one of the issues on their agenda was how to convince Jonathan to drop Sambo ahead 2015.
It was gathered that the G5 governors and others in their camp believed that if Jonathan must contest in the next election, one of them must emerge as his running mate.
Dissenting views in the presidency
It has been confirmed that the presidency is tinkering with two options in dealing with the crisis within PDP.
A source in the know told the Nigerian Tribune that while a group of advisers and operatives at the Presidential Villa were of the view that the president should go for the broke and deal decisively with the recalcitrant members of the PDP, others were of the view that the president should meet them half way.
One of the forces had argued that the recalcitrant PDP members be expelled, while the state executive committees in the six states be dissolved.
Others were, however, of the view that the president should hear the governors out and meet their demands half way.
But it was stated that the demands of the governors were not clearly stated other than the loud issue of their rejection of Tukur as chairman of the party.
A source said the request for the removal of Sambo was a tall order.
“Their request for the post of PDP national secretary, national organising secretary and deputy national chairman are difficult tasks that must go through the party system.
“The president would have loved to meet some of their demands directly within his powers. But how does he remove his deputy, who has been loyal to the government and the party all along? How does he pick the party officers outside the national convention?
“The move by the G5 governors and Atiku was principally to draw Jonathan out and make him to negotiate on their terms.
“We are studying their actions and the president is not going to be stampeded into taking political actions or kick starting the 2015 talk when he had asked Nigerians to wait till 2014,” the source said.
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