NORTHERN ELDERS PLOT SAMBO’S EXIT

The crisis rocking the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to have taken a dramatic turn during the Yuletide season as the hawks within the party want the Vice President, Nnamadi Sambo, out of office.
Sambo’s traducers did not, however, suggest who should replace him.
The internal combustion in the party triggered off by the determination of some aggrieved state governors to remove Dr. Bamanga Tukur, the party’s National Chairman, had weakened the very foundation of the once strong party as all the cracks within it were magnified and exhibited for both party and none-party members to see.
The internal crisis got to a climax during the party’s mini-national convention when some governors and party stalwarts staged a walk-out which eventually led to five of the aggrieved governors decamping to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
But unlike Tukur whose traducers were basically governors on the platform of the party that cut across the north and south- south zones where the party has reasonable followers, those gunning for the office of Sambo are elders of the party from the northern part of the country.
Daily Newswatch authoritatively gathered that the anti-Sambo elements are not limiting their agitation to discussing with President Goodluck Jonathan alone; some of them have reduced their positions to writing letters to the President.
Some of the Sambo- must-go chieftains were said to have informed the President that it was because his Vice President is a political liability and a highly incompetent politician that has made it possible for the opposition to have the upper hand in the north.
They argued that the Vice President deliberately refused to empower those with electoral values in the north, rather, he is alleged to be busy spending time and valuable resources on perceived “enemies” of the administration.
A Second Republic legislator, Hon. Sidi Ali from Kano State confirmed to Daily Newswatch that most northern elders in the party would prefer the President running in 2015 with another deputy.
In fact, according to him, this is one of the conditions some of them gave the President for supporting his second term ambition.
Hon. Ali confirmed to Daily Newswatch that he wrote a personal letter to President Jonathan on how the party could make an in-road again in the north, stressing that he argued convincingly that Sambo must be dropped for the president to achieve his ambition.
Contacted for comments on the development, former Kaduna State governor, Alhaji Mohammed Lawal Kaita said the idea of dropping Sambo does not arise since most Nigerians do not want Jonathan to come back to Aso Rock in 2015.
“Majority of Northerners do not want Jonathan coming back in 2015. I don’t imagine Jonathan coming back and I believe he cannot come back. Not at all”, he stressed, adding, “since they do not want Jonathan back as President, there should not be a question of Sambo coming back as Vice President”.
Source: Daily Newswatch