*Obasanjo's bid to intervene collapses, govs remain adamant
ABUJA— FOUR South-South governors, Victor Attah (Akwa-Ibom), James Ibori (Delta), Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (Bayelsa) and Lucky Igbinedion (Edo), rose from their meeting yesterday in Abuja, insisting on the nomination of Dr. Tarila Tebepah to replace the late Chief A. K. Dikibo as national vice chairman (South-South).
The governors restated their rejection of the appointment and swearing in of Mr. Godspower Ake as Dikibo’s successor by the national chairman of the party, Chief Audu Ogbeh, saying that the stakeholders’ meeting at which the succession issue was to have been settled had not been held.
Dr. Tebepah from Bayelsa State is Governor Alamieyeseigha’s nominee while Mr. Ake from Rivers State is Governor Peter Odili’s nominee for the topmost party position in the South-South zone. Ake was sworn-in by the PDP national chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, in a manner that has been widely portrayed as a coup allegedly masterminded by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, and Governor Odili.
Addressing a joint press conference yesterday with the subject: “A South-South Replacement for Late Chief A.K. Dikibo”, the four governors said a final decision on the ABUJA— FOUR South-South governors, Victor Attah (Akwa-Ibom), James Ibori (Delta), Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (Bayelsa) and Lucky Igbinedion (Edo), rose from their meeting yesterday in Abuja, insisting on the nomination of Dr. Tarila Tebepah to replace the late Chief A. K. Dikibo as national vice chairman (South-South).
The governors restated their rejection of the appointment and swearing in of Mr. Godspower Ake as Dikibo’s successor by the national chairman of the party, Chief Audu Ogbeh, saying that the stakeholders’ meeting at which the succession issue was to have been settled had not been held.
Dr. Tebepah from Bayelsa State is Governor Alamieyeseigha’s nominee while Mr. Ake from Rivers State is Governor Peter Odili’s nominee for the topmost party position in the South-South zone. Ake was sworn-in by the PDP national chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, in a manner that has been widely portrayed as a coup allegedly masterminded by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, and Governor Odili.
Addressing a joint press conference yesterday with the subject: “A South-South Replacement for Late Chief A.K. Dikibo”, the four governors said a final decision on the succession race had not been taken, hence the “purported swearing-in of Hon. G.U. Ake as a replacement for late Chief A.K. Dikibo came to us as a total surprise.
“We, the governors of the four South-South states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta and Edo are deeply dismayed, not only by the unprecedented volume of write-ups and articles, but more particularly by the deliberate falsehoods, insinuations and outright distortions of facts by a section of the media as a fall-out of the recent zonal meeting of the PDP in Uyo.
“We, however, note with appreciation the interest of the generality of the media in the affairs of this ‘misunderstood region’ particularly as it relates to efforts aimed at identifying and articulating issues of common concern and setting the agenda for addressing them.
“Reports, analyses and feature stories in the newspapers tend to agree that there is a problem over the issue of a replacement for late Chief Aminasori Dikibo, former National Vice Chairman of PDP, South-South, owing to the inability or unwillingness of certain leaders to accept the majority position on the matter.
“All have also agreed that out of the five governors present at the meeting in Uyo, four supported a particular candidate while one supported the other. The third candidate was disqualified from contesting. Also, an overwhelming majority of the members of the zonal caucus of the party comprising National Assembly members and other accredited members supported the choice of the four governors.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state as follows:
*That truly, the Uyo meeting could not arrive at a consensus candidate for the position of PDP National Vice Chairman, South-South.
*That as a result of this, a firm decision was taken to ‘step the mater down’ until another meeting of the stakeholders could be convened.
*That since this decision was taken, no meeting of the stakeholders or indeed of the governors, has been called to discuss this issue.
*That news of the purported swearing-in of Hon. G.U. Ake as a replacement for late Chief A.K. Dikibo came to us as a total surprise.
*That the Governor of Bayelsa State, whose nominee had enjoyed popular support, has strongly protested this patently undemocratic action.
*That we, the three governors of Akwa Ibom, Delta and Edo continue to firmly support the nomination of Dr. Tarila Tebepah as the replacement for late Chief A.K. Dikibo.”
The declaration by the four governors came on the heels of last week’s explanation by Chief Anenih that Rivers State produced Ake to complete the four-year term in office of the late Dikibo, which expires December next year. Chief Anenih had said: “The National Secretariat of the party wrote Rivers State to nominate somebody for the un-expired period (Dikibo’s tenure would have expired in December 2005).
The letter was written and signed by the National Secretary of the party, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor.
“On the receipt of the letter, the Executive Committee of Rivers State nominated Godspower Ake and sent the nomination to the National Secretariat. The National Secretariat in turn accepted Ake’s nomination and wrote the Chairman of Rivers State chapter of the party that Ake would be sworn-in last Wednesday. That was what happened, because Bayelsa State is up till today retaining the position of Deputy National Organising Secretary.
“What Rivers State did was to obey the instruction of the National Secretariat, which was proper. If there was any gang-up by a group of people, I take it as an unfortunate thing. What the party has done is the correct thing, according to our constitution and the zoning arrangement, which all stakeholders in the South-South zone, including state chairmen, who did not agree with the nomination by Bayelsa governor, as he already has the Deputy National Organising Secretary, and the two positions cannot be in one state.
“I am happy that the National Working Committee did the right thing. There would have been a disaster if the reverse was the case. But South-South leaders have a way of settling problems within the zone and I believe that the dusts raised have settled. We are now working together to move the zone forward in the scheme of things without bitterness because all the governors are mature and understanding.”
But Governor Attah, during the question and answer session, dismissed the explanation, saying: “Even if, and I repeat, even if it was true that the National Vice Chairman was to come from Rivers State, it is the zone that was supposed to produce such a candidate. I want you to get that principle very, very clear.
“We are not here appointing a minister to serve the National Working Committee or any such thing. When the president needed a minister from me, he asked me to make nomination, but when the party needs a candidate from a zone, it writes to the zone to produce a candidate and I think that has been the way the whole process has been flawed.
“You cannot possibly write to one governor to send in somebody to serve a zone; it has never happened before. So, you talked about precedent, we do not know that there is any such precedent. I will like you to go and ask the National Secretariat to produce for you the letter that they wrote to the North-West zone because at the same time that we were expected to produce a replacement, North-West was expected to produce a replacement and they did and the letter was to the zone.
“The zone presented a candidate after going through a series of processes of elimination from 11 to nine to seven candidates, and eventually agreed on which one the zone wanted. But here we are, a strange situation in which a governor is being asked to nominate and that is why it is problematic. We do not think that whoever was presented therefore is a zonal candidate.”
Asked to comment on where the Cross River State governor, Mr. Donald Duke, stands in the matter, Governor Attah said: “The governor is alive and well and available to answer your question.”
South-South govs, Obasanjo meet
The South-South governors later met yesterday for two hours with President Olusegun Obasanjo at the Presidential Villa on the issue. They declined to speak to reporters on what transpired at the meeting, but Vanguard gathered that the talks failed to resolve the logjam.
Sources close to the meeting said the president was diplomatic in his handling of the matter, saying he thought the position was specifically zoned to Rivers State. He was said to have blamed party officials for feeding him with wrong report on the true position of things.
