•••As minority stakeholders plot take-over of PDP

Sun News

25 April 2011

•••As minority stakeholders plot take-over of PDP

Indications are rife that a group of stakeholders representing the interests of minority states in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have perfected a plot to take over the ruling party.

It was gathered that the group of “minority stakeholders in the PDP” are buoyed by the outcome of the April 16, 2011 election in which President Goodluck Jonathan won the former military head of state, Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

According to a source, the plot by the PDP to sanction the leading lights of the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NLPF), former military President Ibrahim Babangida, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Aliyu Gusau and former Minister of Finance Mallam Adamu Ciroma was part of the larger plot to take over the ruling party.

A leading national newspaper had reported on Saturday of a move by elements within the PDP to sanction the G3 (IBB, Atiku and Gusau) and Ciroma for anti-party activities. The quartet were alleged to have “facilitated” the botched renewed alliance talks between Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) before the April 16 presidential election.

But the source privy to a meeting that was held in Abuja during the week by “Minority Stakeholders in PDP” confirmed that the consideration of possible sanctions against IBB, Atiku, Gusau and Ciroma was aimed at “dealing with all those who may offer any form of resistance or opposition” to the planned bid to take over the PDP.