President Jonathan turns against Tukur.

At last, President Goodluck Jonathan has turned against the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, as the crisis rocking the ruling party worsens. For the first time, the President openly condemned the party chairman’s administrative style at a stormy  meeting  with Tukur  and  other members of the PDP National Working Committee at the presidential villa  in Abuja  on Thursday night. At the meeting held under what could best be described as a tensed atmosphere, the President was said to have expressed his displeasure over the way the PDP chairman was running the party. Specifically, the President was said to have pointedly accused Tukur of not working well with some organs of the party like the members of the National Executive Committee, Board of Trustees, governors and state party chairmen   across the states.

’’Tukur was said to have fired back and accused some of the NWC members of being anti-Jonathan, alleging a gang up of some of the members of the NWC against him.Tukur, it was also gathered, said he had wanted to work with a team but allegedly regretted that he was only able to have a group to work with among the NWC members.This was said to have drawn the anger of the NWC members as they were said to have asked if only Tukur was capable of singlehandedly returning the President to office in 2015.Some of the governors and stakeholders of the party are said to be insisting on the removal of Tukur so that peace to return could the troubled party, which has lost five governors and 37 members of the House of Representatives to the All Progressives Congress. But a chieftain of the party, who was also at the meeting, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, accused   Akpabio  of working against Jonathan and destabilising the NWC.He said, “Unknown to many, while Akpabio pretends to be working for the President, he has his eyes on the ticket either as the Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate in case the heat becomes too much for President Jonathan and he chooses not to run. So, the strategy is to first stoke the fire on the President’s key supporters and at the same time pretend to be fighting for him.“Towards this end, he has mobilised these people to destabilise the NWC with a view to seeing to Tukur’s exit. Of late, he has been going round, especially to the North, with a view to mobilising support for his concealed agenda.

”But political analysts believe that  Akpabio’s move against Tukur might have been informed by the perceived body language of the President against Tukur in his desperate  bid to please party members in order to get the party ticket to run in 2015.They argue that Akpabio, being one of Jonathan’s loyalists is not likely to do anything against him and   that he might just be acting the script of the President by moving against the party chairman.