The crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP deepened at the weekend just as reasons stoking the conflict that has pitched President Goodluck Jonathan and his aides against the National Working Committee, NWC of the party began to unfold. At the heart of the crisis, Vanguard learnt is the struggle for the soul of the party ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

sources gathered that associates of President Jonathan are determined to shove away the Adamu Mu‘azu-led NWC in favour of a more pliable executive for the purpose of ensuring the return of President Jonathan as presidential candidate or in the alternative a candidate of their choice in 2019.

The NWC, we learnt was, however, looking beyond Jonathan with their eyes fixed on the Northeast for the 2019 presidential candidate with a leading chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC from that region in their sights.

Besides, authoritative sources also disclosed outstanding issues in the 2015 elections between presidency officials and the NWC over the handling of the election campaign in which party officials were complaining of their sidelining by the president.

Multiple sources also traced the quarrel between the PDP NWC and the presidency to the stout refusal of the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Adamu Mu‘azu to reject the outcome of the presidential election as had been suggested to him by presidency officials even after the president had himself accepted the outcome of the elections.

Meanwhile, the NWC in a rejection of the presidency pressures is to inaugurate a 15-man committee to redesign the future of the party. The committee to be chaired by the deputy president of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, Vanguard gathered, will proclaim the new face of the party outside the considerations of the thoughts of the Jonathan presidency.

Meanwhile, leading figures in the NWC continued to reject the pressures on them to resign from office yesterday with the National Secretary of the party, Prof. Adewale Oladipo flaying the moves as part of a conspiracy to derail efforts to rebuild the party to its preeminent position in the country.

The battle line between the presidency and the NWC was firmly established last weekend after the Mu‘azu and the National Publicity Secretary in two different statements warned against efforts by presidency officials to instigate the sacking of the NWC.

The National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in his statement, had warned those he described as some ambitious aides and associates of President Goodluck Jonathan trying to use their closeness to him to cause crisis in the party and pave way for more defection to other parties.

Giving reasons for the squabble a high-level official said: “The thinking in the president’s camp is that after four years, Buhari would have done very badly and Nigerians would demand the return of President Jonathan and the president’s people know that there is no way he can get the ticket through the present NWC.”

The president’s discomfort with the NWC, it was learnt flowed from the lack of confidence the president had in the days leading to the campaign when he sidetracked the national officers of the party in marshalling his campaign.

The distrust between the presidency and the NWC flowed from what one party source said was the refusal of some critical members of the NWC to take some hard-line stance against the Buhari candidacy. Mu‘azu and Metuh, Our reporter gathered were especially faulted for throwing softballs at Buhari at the height of the campaign.

Even more, sources in Abuja disclosed that the suspicion against Mu‘azu peaked after he reportedly rejected entreaties to him by presidency officials to formally reject and instigate judicial proceedings against the outcome of the presidential elections.

Giving reasons for Mu‘azu’s rejection of the entreaty, a source privy to the development said:
“After the president conceded to Buhari senior PDP officials were called together to the villa where the decision was taken that Mu’azu should reject the INEC result and file a case against it, but Mu’azu rejected it that it was unthinkable since the president had already conceded,” one source disclosed.

Not long after, presidency aides through some governors mounted pressures on the NWC members to resign, a development that was stubbornly rebuffed by the NWC members. Not long after, some governors were said to have returned to the NWC members to tell them that the decision for them to resign came from the villa.

The villa like some other critical stakeholders in the party believes that the NWC members should resign from office having led the party to the worst electoral outing since the formation of the party 17 years ago.

The NWC members, however, rebuff the entreaty on the claim that they were impeded in their work by the decision of the president to put all his energies on the leadership of the Presidential Campaign Council, PCC and sideline the top hierarchy of the party.

Even the PCC it was learnt was itself also not well primed for its job. One of the state directors lamented that not once were the state directors called together for strategy meetings on how they would deliver the president.

“I met the director-general few days to the campaign and urged him to summon a strategy meeting for state directors but he told me not to worry that everything was on course, and you can see the outcome,” the state director disclosed.

In firmly rejecting pressures on him to resign, the national secretary of the party, Prof. Oladipo in a statement personally signed by him said his:

“It is therefore disheartening that rather than joining other well-meaning members of our great party in supporting the National Working Committee in the on-going re-engineering process to rebuild the PDP, some elders from our zone, particularly, a former Deputy National Chairman, Chief Olabode George, who should know, have instead resorted to divisive politics by attempting to instigate our members against one another.

“What our party needs now in the southwest and indeed across the country is for all hands to be on the deck as we work harmoniously in our determination to reposition the PDP to regain power in 2019. Our party members are by this therefore charged to watch out for individuals whose agenda is to sow seeds of discord and pave way for crisis within our fold for their selfish interests.

“The National Working Committee is now more than ever before determined to rebuild the PDP and restore its glory as the preeminent political party in Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, the party yesterday unveiled the composition of the 15-man committee that is expected to review the outcome of the last general elections and give a direction of the way to go in the future.

The committee is made up of Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State; Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State; Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo; Governor-elect of Rivers, Nyesom Wike; Minister of Education, Ibrahim Shekarau; former governor of Niger State, Abdulkadir Kure; Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha; Minister of Interior. Mr. Abba Moro; Alh. Adamu Waziri; Sen. Ahmed Makarfi; Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe Chief Pegba Otemolu and Mrs. Funmi Ayoola, has the Secretary, PDP Board of Trustees, BoT, Sen. Walid Jibril as Member and Secretary.