How Ribadu’s ambition splits Adamawa PDP

The National Working Commit-tee says Ribadu was elected at a special congress in Abuja, but the key leaders of the party in Adamawa State have dismissed this as ‘dubious and unconstitutional’. The dispute has apparently thrown the party into chaos in the state.Some chieftains of the party have already left in protest while many others […]

The National Working Commit-tee says Ribadu was elected at a special congress in Abuja, but the key leaders of the party in Adamawa State have dismissed this as ‘dubious and unconstitutional’. The dispute has apparently thrown the party into chaos in the state.
Some chieftains of the party have already left in protest while many others have remained inside but with a vow to oppose Ribadu’s candidacy to the very end. The local leadership of the party – including Governor Bala Nggilari (though some reports suggest that he has been promised a senatorial ticket to appease him) – are still fighting for the conduct of governorship and other primaries in the state. But Ribadu and his backers are in triumphant mood.
Historically, the Adamawa PDP has not seen peace since 2006 when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo de-registered the then Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his supporters from the party. But the latest round of conflict began a few months ago when Ribadu defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to seek for the PDP’s governorship ticket.
Local party officials say Ribadu is the candidate of Ambassador Hassan Tukur, the Principal Private Secretary of President Goodluck Jonathan, and that the national leadership of the party is just doing his bidding.
They say the move to impose Ribadu began last August during preparations for Adamawa’s governorship bye-election after the impeachment of Governor Murtala Nyako. The move was only halted by an equally determined effort of the then Acting Governor Ahmadu Fintiri to get the seat himself. When a court removed Fintiri and declared former Deputy Governor Bala Nggilari as substantive governor, the move to install Ribadu resumed. But the local leadership of the party resisted. They were dissolved by the national secretariat and then re-instated following protest from the state stakeholders. The State Chairman Chief Joel Madaki and the Secretary Barrister Tahir Shehu were then suspended, but a court declared their suspension illegal and ordered that only the delegates who were elected under their supervision should be allowed to participate in the party’s primaries.
The National Working Committee ignored the court orders and organised primaries in Abuja – with its own set of delegates – where it says Ribadu emerged as governorship candidate and several others emerged as candidates for various legislative seats.
The national secretariat says the decision to hold the primaries in Abuja followed alleged intimidation of the electoral committee, headed by Ambassador Tim Ehemadu, sent to Yola to conduct the elections. It says the committee has sent a petition alleging intimidation and harassment by agents of Governor Nggilari and imposition of candidates during the State House of Assembly primaries. The governor has denied the allegations, but the national secretariat says there was no guarantee that a free and fair primary election could be conducted in Yola – hence the decision to hold one in Abuja.
The trouble, though, was that, with the exception of Ribadu and his camp members, no other significant aspirant attended the Abuja congress. Worse still, the court-endorsed delegates did not attend it. They too alleged that it was ‘dubious and illegal’.
Governorship aspirants including Awwal Tukur, the son of former National Chairman Bamanga Tukur; former Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission Dr Ahmad Moddibo; former governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Marcus Gundiri; retired General Aliyu Kama and Governor Nggilari as well as politicians seeking for nomination for various legislative posts rose up against the Abuja primaries.
The spokesperson of the aggrieved PDP stakeholders in Adamawa, Professor Andrawus Sawa, said the delegates were in Yola when the election was held in Abuja and that the electoral law and party’s constitution provided that, in case of a change of election venue, at least seven days’ notice must be given.
Awwal Tukur said if their efforts to resolve the crisis through the party’s internal mechanisms failed, they would be left with no option other than taking legal action or defecting to another political party.
Moreover, the Director General of Governor Nggilari campaign organisation, Senator Abubakar Girei, said at a stakeholders’ meeting in Yola this week that Nggilari remains a governorship aspirant in the party.
It is still unclear whether the senatorial appeasement ticket reportedly being offered to the governor could make him abandon his quest for the governorship ticket. If he accepts the appeasement ticket, he would have to settle ex-presidential aide Barrister Ahmad Ali Gulak, who hails from his (Nggilari’s) zone and has been nominated for the ticket in the Ribadu camp.
But if Nggilari insists on rejecting Ribadu’s candidacy, sources say, there is an impeachment threat hanging in the air. They claim that the Speaker of the State House of Assembly Ahmadu Fintiri, who is the governor’s biggest political rival from Madagali area of the state, has already been recruited by Ribadu’s team to put that into effect. They say although Fintiri too was a victim of Ribadu’s political intrigue, he has since joined their team for his own personal ambition. They also point out that, even if impeachment proves difficult, there is still a pending court case where Fintiri is appealing against his sacking and declaration of Nggilari as governor. One of the sources says Fintiri is allegedly being backed by Ribadu’s team in that quest, although it was also the same team that allegedly supported the lower court’s case in Nggilari’s favour.
Fintiri and the State House of Assembly are still pursuing the appeals court case vigorously. Speaking to Daily Trust in Yola, Fintiri’s press secretary, Mr Solomon Kumangar, said the House is asking the court to declare the resignation of Nggilari as valid, arguing that after Nggilari’s resignation the then Governor Nyako nominated Adamu Kamale as deputy governor.
Ribadu’s backers are apparently well prepared to take on Nggilari’s possible intransigence. This is in addition to securing the support of some other politicians who also see the potential of reaping political capital out of the support Ribadu is getting from Hassan Tukur and Adamu Mu’azu, the party’s national chairman.
Apart from Ribadu, other beneficiaries of the Abuja congress include former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Aliyu Idi Hong, Senator Jonathan Zwingina and Ahmad Gulak, who were declared as candidates for southern, central and northern senatorial zones in the state.
Dr Hong has defended their emergence as candidates, saying it was the responsibility of the national secretariat to release the list of delegates – and not the state executives’.
He said the party would neither accept a ‘doctored list’ from the ‘suspended’ party executives nor succumb to blackmail or intimidation from any member, insisting that the party is ready to deal with internal dissension by few individuals.
Also, a statement signed by Jingi Rufai, the deputy chairman of the state PDP who was directed by the National Working Committee to take over as substantive chairman, following the suspension of Chief Madaki, has lambasted both Madaki and Barrister Shehu for parading themselves as party officials.
The statement warned the duo to desist from their action as the party would not condone such behaviour, calling on party members to disregard their utterances.
But neither Dr Hong nor Jingi Rufai made reference to the court order that reinstated Chief Madaki and Barrister Shehu to their posts as the state chairman and secretary of the party respectively. There has also been no explanation over the alleged disregard of court order over the delegates it has approved for the congress.
Another dimension to the crisis is the issue of zoning the governorship slot to Adamawa Central Senatorial District reached in Abuja last August in a gentleman’s agreement ahead of the failed governorship bye-election.
Governorship aspirants from central zone include Ribadu, Senator Girei, retired General Kama, Dr Hong, Awwal Tukur, Professor Sawa and Dr Moddibo. Supporters of Nggilari say he was not a party to that agreement and it was not binding on him. They also argue that the fact that the bye-election that necessitated it didn’t hold shows that it no longer exists.
But as the struggle for the party’s ticket continues, those who realised that it would affect the party’s fortune – or theirs – have since moved to other parties.
A member of the House of Representatives in the party, Aishatu Dahiru-Ahmad, popularly known as Binani, who is seeking for a Adamawa Central Senatorial seat; her husband Dr Modibbo, who is a governorship aspirant; and a party’s chieftain in Mubi, Alhaji Abdurrahman Kwacam, have all defected to Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), under which they are now vying for the senatorial, governorship and House of Representatives seats in the state.
Many more chieftains are threa-tening to leave the party – a situation that doesn’t seem to be worrying the Abuja nominated candidates. The people who appear to give them strong worries, though, are those who remain in the PDP and continue to oppose their nomination.