Jonathan Assembles Team To Reconcile George, Wike and Others

Jonathan Assembles Team To Reconcile George, Wike and Others

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has initiated efforts to reconcile aggrieved members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who lost out in the power play at the PDP convention held over the weekend.

Jonathan on Monday assembled a team of his loyalists and paid a visit to one of the initial aspirants for the position of the PDP national publicity secretary and former minister of national planning, Prof Suleiman Abubakar, in Abuja.

Weeks before the PDP convention, Jonathan had urged the party to elect credible members as national chairman and national publicity secretary or risk defeat in 2019. His efforts at reconciling aggrieved members is therefore believed to be geared towards ensuring the success of the party at the next general elections.

PDP members on Jonathan’s team for the reconciliation effort include his former minister of special duties, Tanimu Turaki (SAN); a former minister of state for finance, Amb. Bashir Yuguda; a former Minister of Finance, Nanadi Usman; and his (Jonathan’s) bosom friend, King Turner.

Turaki and Turner were with Jonathan when he visited Prof Suleiman on Monday to persuade Suleiman to bury the hatchet and suspend his plan to approach the courts to nullify the Secondus’ election as PDP chairman. Suleiman had earlier threatened to challenge the outcome of the convention in court, saying his name was technically omitted among those contesting the position of the national publicity secretary

It is believed that while the party has a standing committee on reconciliation, the Jonathan team would be working to particularly douse the tension generated by last weekend’s convention. The team would visit aggrieved aspirants with a view to appealing to them to forget about their grievances and work with the Uche Secondus-led members of the National Working Committee.

Meanwhile, a principal character in the fiasco around the PDP convention, Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike has paid a visit to one of the former aspirants for the seat of the PDP chairman, Chief Bode George who withdrew from the race a day before the convention and accused Wike of disrespecting Yoruba members of the party.

Wike reportedly visited George in the company of the new PDP chairman, Secondus, and was said to have explained that he never intended to insult members of the party from the south-west.

According to Punch, George told the governor and Secondus that the treatment meted out to the Yoruba would affect PDP’s electoral chances in the south-west region unless urgent steps are taken to appease the region. Both Wike and Secondus were said to have then promised to ensure the south-west got an appropriate compensation.