Former Chairman of PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor, says former President
Goodluck Jonathan, is the cause of PDP’s failure. Ogbulafor said this in
a recent interview with Vanguard. According to him, PDP collapsed when
Jonathan fell out with former PDP governors Rotimi Amaechi, Bukola
Saraki, Aliyu Wammako.
โThe person who caused the failure of PDP is Jonathan. PDP had internal
democracy, a zoning pattern which worked for them for 16 years, and we
agreed at a meeting that power would stay in the North for eight years
before it returns to the South for another eight years.
You will not say YarโAdua ruled for eight years; not
even for four years, because he was sick. The best thing Jonathan would
have done was to bring a Northerner and make him President and agree
that when he finishes, power will come to the South and if it is him
again, then he will contest. Doing that, the North will be happy; that
was my feeling, and that was why I said that power is still in the North
because we agreed eight years each for the two zones. So that is where
the power tussle began and that was the downfall of PDP. When we refused
to follow our guidelines, we derailed and there was no more internal
democracy. When I said power would remain in the North, Jonathan did not
like it and they made sure they unseated me. I left. That is when I
knew that PDP was in for trouble, and that was when the diarrhoea
started. But it has happened: same Katsina State where YarโAdua is from.
Immediately I left, Jonathan had five PDP chairmen in one year. It is
unheard of and that is when the problem started, and it has continued to
degenerate. When Tony Anenih, Chairman, Board of Trustees resigned,
when Muazu resigned, I commended their guts and I said these men want
PDP to survive because they quietly exited. I advised then that the
National Working Committee, NWC, of the party should resign because they
had led PDP to failure, but they were more interested in the money they
were sharing; they failed to heed my advice and that led PDP to where
we are today. I advised him not to touch the structure of governors. He
went and tampered with the structure; that was when they said 16 is
greater than 19. So some solid governors left the party: people like
Amaechi, Saraki and Wammakko. Those are areas where you get a good
number of voters. When they left the party, what do you expect? The
party, indeed, collapsed”he said
