Embattled National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Prince Vincent Ogbulafor is expected to quit his post anytime today following the withdrawal of support from the PDP governors who caved in to pressure from President Goodluck Jonathan and advised Ogbulafor to resign, Daily Trust learnt yesterday. Already, his aides had cleared the chairman’s personal effects from his office at the PDP’s Wadata Plaza national secretariat and Ogbulafor did not report for work yesterday.
Efforts to reach Ogbulafor’s Assistant on Media and Public Relations Chijioke Adindu to confirm the authenticity of the reports proved abortive.
The National Chairman was not at the secretariat up till 6:30 p.m when our reporter left the Wadata Plaza. However, PDP National Secretary Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje in an interview with reporters over the development could neither confirm nor deny the resignation reports.
Baraje, who said he could only confirm whether the story was true or not after some hours, stated that Ogbulafor was still consulting other stakeholders from his zone as a result of the Southeast governors’ demand on him that he should resign.
He said the Southeast governors’ request was taken seriously because of the PDP tradition and unwritten law that governors are leaders of the party in the states.
Baraje, who noted that Ogbulafor had not been convicted as a result of the ongoing corruption trial, also said the only snag was the request by his zone which he is representing that he should resign.
Baraje said: “The national chairman of a party like PDP cannot resign without you hearing. I cannot confirm that to you now but maybe in the next few hours I will be able to confirm yes or no.”
He added: “On a serious note, it is no longer news that three governors from the eastern states asked him to resign as a result of the case in court and you know the process of electing our chairman and various members of the executive party.
“They come from the zone before; they are now elected through national convention. So he has to go on consultation with his zone and presently he is doing a lot of consultations around from his zone and the outcome of the consultation is what will tell us whether he is going to resign or not.
“That is why I tell you that presently I cannot confirm and I know that before the end of the day, definitely you will know the outcome of his consultation, today (yesterday). Definitely you will know the outcome of the consultation.” Commenting on the reports that all the PDP governors had ordered Ogbulafor to resign, he replied: “that is not true and I won’t say more than that.”
He dismissed the knowledge of the insinuation that President Goodluck Jonathan was behind the move to oust the party’s National Chairman.
When asked to give the process involved in the resignation of the national chairman, the party scribe reacted: “the process is very clear in the Constitution. If he resigns, then there is a vacancy and the constitution says that if there is a vacancy he hands over to the deputy national chairman pending the appointment of a new chairman from that same zone and the appointment will also have to be confirmed by the executive committee of the party.
“The process is that he will resign, handover to the deputy and the deputy will hold forth and the letter will have to be presented to the deputy who will present it to the National Executive Committee (NEC) and at the same time approved.”
In a separate interview, PDP National Legal Adviser Chief Olusola Oke said he was not aware if Ogbulafor had resigned or not but noted that an emergency meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) is likely to hold today if he tenders a resignation letter, to look at the letter in order to enable them accept or forward it to National Executive Committee (NEC).
Oke, who explained that the issue of one month notice of resignation was not mandatory, stated that such issue required consultations with other party leaders apart from the NWC.
While dismissing the insinuation that any eventual resignation of Ogbulafor would affect the party’s zoning formula, the National Legal Adviser said any replacement would come from the Southeast geo-political zone in line with the PDP Constitution.
He said the NEC would meet to ratify anybody chosen to replace Ogbulafor should he decide to resign.
“At the moment as far as we are concerned until 2011 when a call to any revisit of the zoning will arise. The chairmanship, if Ogbulafor resigns, will still have to come from the southeast,” he said.
Daily Trust could not reach PDP’s spokesman Professor Rufai Alkali for comments. However, another source said the NWC members met with Ogbulafor on Wednesday but the meeting ended inconclusively because “the other executives could not tell him what to do in the light of the governors’ demand. He has to go and make his own consultations.” The source confirmed that the latest trouble for the chairman began on Tuesday when President Goodluck Jonathan told the South Eastern PDP governors that he could not work with Ogbulafor on moral grounds because he is standing trial in court over alleged fraud.
The source however said, “That was the reason the President gave, but it was not true. It was not his real reason. This alleged offence was committed more than 10 years ago, and no one thought it fit to prosecute him until now. The President’s real reason is 2011, period. He wants to remove the chairman so that he can grab control of the party, change the power rotation formula and rig his way to the nomination. That’s all.”
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