Notable politicians loyal to former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday joined the rebel People’s Democratic Party group, the PDP Reform Forum, which is working to upstage the leadership of the party ahead of next year’s elections.

Obasanjo’s men who attended the forum’s conference on electoral reform held in Abuja include former FCT minister Nasir el-Rufai, former aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode, former presidential adviser Akin Osuntokun and former foreign affairs minister Ojo Maduekwe.

Their joining the rebellious group could energise the campaign for the dissolution of the PDP national working committee, until recently headed by Vincent Ogbulafor.

Maduekwe sneaked into the venue while the programme was starting. For his part, el-Rufai was hailed when his name was mentioned while Fani-Kayode assisted Prof. Femi Otubajo to anchor the programme. The former aviation minister called for a minute’s silence in honour of the late President Umaru Yar’adua.

The PDP Reform Forum was set up during the crisis that characterised the period of President Yar’adua’s illness and the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan as acting president.

Led by former speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Masari, the group is believed to be fronting for Jonathan in his quest to wrestle the PDP machinery from the apparent stranglehold of the governors, ahead of next year’s general elections.

Some of the Obasanjo men at the event are known to be interested in standing for elections next year. Fani-Kayode has already declared for governor in his home state.

For his part, el-Rufai has since his return to Nigeria early this month been canvassing support for Jonathan in the 2011 presidential poll.

Masari, who spoke at the event as chairman of the occasion in the absence of former Senate President Ken Nnamani, insisted that there was a need to have the right kind of leadership in the PDP ahead of the general elections so as to check the falling fortunes of the ruling party.

He said the forum was not aimed at dislodging any particular individual from his position, but said it was not acceptable for governors or local government chairmen to select candidates for elections.

“Let the people decide who will govern them. With what we have in PDP today, instead of the dog wagging the tail, it is the tail wagging the dog. This is unacceptable,” he said.

Delivering a lecture on the theme of the conference ‘Political Party Reform as a Sine-Qua-Non for Electoral Reform,’ former attorney-general of the federation Kanu Agabi said there was need for tolerance and internal democracy in the ruling party.

Agabi, who said parties were supposed to act as agents of change, noted that the responsibilities vested on all politicians by the nation’s founding fathers could not be discharged without objectivity and honesty.

He warned that if the infighting among PDP members continued, opposition parties would “have a feast on the PDP.”

“Our party has for some time now been characterised by intolerance. It mustn’t be so. We are in a lesson process. In dealing with one another, we have to be patient. However intelligent we may be, there must allowance for error. That is what this reform group is all about,” Agabi said.

“The party must reform itself. It has no alternative. Your commitment to reform must be rigid. You must not relent. It is the conformists who must relent. PDP has a constitution, no one has the right to go outside that constitution in conducting the affairs of the party,” he added.

Former transportation minister Abiye Sekibo, who was giving an appraisal of the reform agenda of the forum, said the forum wanted to galvanise all PDP stakeholders to recognise the need to separate the party from the government and return to participatory democracy.

Former Imo State governor Achike Udenwa, who spoke on behalf of other former governors, said a letter has been sent to President Jonathan on the need for him to listen to the forum.

Others at the occasion include former education minister Mrs Chinwe Obaje,   Obasanjo’s former aide Prof. Julius Ihonbhere and former Senate President Adolphus Wabara.