Buhari steps into nPDP crisis

As part of efforts to douse the grievances of members of the new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) bloc of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a meeting between the group and President Muhammadu Buhari is billed to hold today. The crucial meeting would, however, be preceded by the one with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Attendees at the meeting are expected to meet the president to intimate him about the outcome of their meeting with Osinbajo.
Baraje said the main agenda of the group’s discussion with the vice president is the petition the nPDP wrote to the party leadership.
“After our meeting with the VP, he (VP) will lead us to the president. It is the outcome of our meeting with the president that will form our next line of action,” he disclosed.
As part of fence-mending moves, the nPDP group led by former acting chairman of PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Baraje had last week met with the national executives of the party to discuss and possibly resolve their differences.
Baraje confirmed the planned meetings with the vice president and the president to newsmen in Ilorin, Kwara State, yesterday.
The APC chieftain commended members of his group and concerned Nigerians who share their views and concerns about the plight of the nPDP members in APC.
Baraje expressed optimism that at the end of today’s meetings, the ruling party will come out stronger and more united in the general interest of the citizenry.
He said the next line of action of his group will be determined by the  outcome of today’s meeting.
Last week, national leaders of the APC and members of the nPDP  announced their  meeting on Monday  in a last minute effort to contain agitation from the nPDP.  Baraje led the group to meet the APC leadership at the national secretariat of the party.
Baraje who decried the high rate of internal  conflicts within the ruling APC, which has culminated in parallel state congresses in at least states, said contrary to insinuations in some quarters, the nPDP’s recent letter to the leadership of the APC was to forestall such occurrences.
While pointing out that the Peoples  Democratic Party (PDP)  never had such internal wrangling  as is evident in the APC,  Baraje warned that if the APC failed to heed the request of the nPDP, then its forthcoming  national convention might become an avenue to wash its dirty linens openly.
He expressed concern over the path being trodden by leaders of the APC, lamenting that what members of the nPDP were witnessing in the APC was worse than what they experienced in the PDP.
He said the nPDP is made up of men and women who cannot  be pushed  aside and referred to the resignation of the group’s secretary and former governor of Osun State,  Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, as signal to what may happen if  members were not able to convince their followers about the need to remain in the APC.
But he said nPDP members would not immediately pull out of the APC if the party failed to meet their  demands, saying like they did in the last administration they would still go ahead and meet with several  leaders across the country to stop what he termed impunity within the party.
“We have travelled a long way with the APC and now we are seeing  things worse in APC than in PDP. If we are leaders worth the name we should  be bold enough to speak about it,” he said.
A few days after the party conducted ward and local government congresses across the country, the nPDP which is one of the power blocs that fused into the APC before the 2015 general elections wrote Buhari and the ruling party expressing their dissatisfaction with the present status quo.
Giving the APC leadership a seven-day ultimatum to convene an emergency meeting to address their grievances, the nPDP also accused the presidency and the party of maltreating their members.
Speaking with journalists at a press conference after a closed door meeting with the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, where a four-page letter dated April 27, 2018, titled “Request for redressing of grievances of the former new PDP block within the All Progressives Congress” was submitted, the group’s leader, Baraje, said without votes contributed by the members of the nPDP, the present government would not have been elected into power.
The letter signed by Baraje and Prince Oyinlola on behalf of the group was addressed to the National Chairman of the party, saying despite their contribution to the success of the APC, their members had been relegated to the background in the scheme of things in the party and in the government.
The letter which was also copied to Buhari and Osinbajo stated that the only seat that went to members of the nPDP in the Federal Executive Council was given to a member whose state contributed virtually no vote to the APC in the 2015 presidential election.
-Sun