SaharaReporters understands that a group of party youths has been mobilized to stage an “occupy” protest that would take over the party secretariat until the NWC members are kicked out by President Jonathan and replaced with a caretaker committee that would be malleable to his desires.
Some chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to start preparing to run again for election in 2019.
The group, which held a high level meeting last week, expressed the view that it was the party, not the President, who failed in the elections. They blamed his defeat on the refusal of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to work assiduously to help him win the re-election. Our sources stated that the Governor of Cross River state, Liyel Imoke, has been tapped to become the new chairman of the People's Democratic party in a bid to re-organize the party on behalf of president Jonathan take over of the party hierarchy.
The chieftains have now convinced President Jonathan to take over the party apparatus from the current national working committee members and ‘reorganize’ towards another run at the presidency in 2019, telling him that his concession in the recent election puts him in a good position locally and internationally to get the support to run for again.
SaharaReporters understands that a group of party youths has been mobilized to stage an “occupy” protest that would take over the party secretariat until the NWC members are kicked out by President Jonathan and replaced with a caretaker committee that would be malleable to his desires.
On their part, members of the NWC who spoke anonymously with our reporter said Mr. Jonathan failed woefully in the election largely due to strategies, sometimes operating outside the party structures.
They gave the example of campaign spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode, who they said, came in to compound the image of the president. They said Mr. Fani-Kayode only helped to build enmity for the president across the nation.
Our sources said that regardless, President Jonathan gave an enormous amount of funds to Fani-Kayode which enabled him to buy himself a mansion in Abuja and begin processing a N300m real estate buy in Lagos , Mr. Fani-Kayode also bought a luxury SUV for one of his numerous girlfriends.
The source stated that Fani-Kayode was given N1.7 billion in cash as his last payment before the presidential election. Also involved in some financial shenanigans, they claimed, was Anthony Anenih, the ubiquitous party Board of Trustees chairman known as “Mr. Fix It”.
Several of the NWC sources stated that the next few days will prove interesting as some of them are willing to give a full account of the fraud perpetrated by President Jonathan and his men, both financially and generally, with regards to the internal rigging that took place in several states across the federation. One of the sources told SaharaReporters that the party actually won 11 states in the presidential election, claiming that in at least four states, figures were simply concocted and presented as election figures.