The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio has said that all traitors within the Peoples’ Democratic Party would be flushed out, even as he likened the members of the party to the disciples of Jesus and traitors as the Judases.
Akpabio, who is the chairman of the newly-formed PDP Governors’ Forum, said in a meeting with the National Working Committee of the party, that the party needed cleansing.
“What the PDP is trying to do now is to cleanse its house, to try to identify the ones they call Judases and say to them, ‘go out, the train is moving’. We will ask them not to remain standing otherwise we will crush them,” said Akpabio to the NWC members, including the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
He explained his Judas theory in detail, saying, “There is an explosion of treachery, where there are more Judases than the number of disciples.
“We want to have good disciples. We know that even in Christendom where Jesus Christ had 12 disciples, there was only one Judas. But if there were up to 9 Judases, then Jesus would have been in trouble, the gospel would have been in trouble today.”
Responding to a question as to why this was the right time to form the PDP Governors’ Forum and whether it would rival the NGF, he said there would be no clash between the two bodies.
He explained that the PDP forum was a child of necessity and that it was not formed prior to now because there had been no challenge.
“There was nothing called global warming and HIV before, and in the same vein, there was no need for a PDP Governors’ Forum 14 years ago, because we were totally in charge.
“You know we are having challenges, but the challenges for me, with what we have started now, have always been a function of the PDP, what you saw was an explosion.”
Akpabio, who addressed journalists in the company of his Bayelsa State counterpart, Mr Henry Seriake-Dickson, declared the PDP the only national party in the country.
According to him, this was the reason that the PDP belongs to the people of Nigeria, and would not be abandoned for the opposition.
“There is no godfather somewhere that stays somewhere to control the PDP,” he added.
He thanked Jonathan and Tukur for seeing him fit to lead the PDP Governors’ Forum.
He said henceforth, all governors of the party would be going to NGF meetings with a block vote and they would not align with the opposition on anything that would be in the way of the progress of the PDP.
He also said that his tenure would be decided by the party and the members of the forum.
In a comment on a claim attributed to a former Head of State and a chieftain of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) that the PDP had merged with the Police, the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Governor Akpabio said that General Buhari could not have said so considering the fact the former head of state was educated and civilized enough to know that it was not possible for a political party to merge with government institutions.
“These are arms of government and there is no way they could have merged with any political party,” he said.
Buhari had on Monday at an interactive session with CPC members alluded there was no need for the PDP to merge as it had already merged with INEC, the Police, Judiciary and others.
Tukur welcomed the emergence of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Akpabio as the forum’s chairman, saying President Goodluck Jonathan could now ‘sleep well’.
“I can now tell Mr President to sleep well. If he had been sleeping for three hours before, I can even ask him now to start observing his siesta regularly,” he said.
He declared together with the election of Chief Tony Anenih as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party, the party was being repositioned to challenge opposition parties and they had no fear regarding the 2015 presidential election.
“It then means that the PDP is a repackaged political party, ready to face all the challenges ahead of the party in 2015,” he said.
Throwing more light on what the repackaged PDP will mean for the opposition parties, Tukur said, “It is only a strong party that is a challenge to an opposition party. PDP is repackaged and is back to assume its rightful position.”
In his opinion, the merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples’ Party (ANPP), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the APC meant that the country was heading for a two-party system with the PDP.
He also commented that most of the people in the APC were originally members of the PDP and talks had commenced to bring them back to the PDP.
“They are coming back, because some of them have told me that their aspirations may not be met in the APC because of the burning ambitions of some individual members.
“They don’t want a party that is run like a cult. They are gradually commencing a return to the PDP, because the PDP is the only national party in Nigeria. Three of us (Tukur, Anenih and Akpabio) will put our heads together and make PDP move ahead and remain formidable to face the opposition party called the APC.”
The PDP Governors’ Forum was formed on Sunday night following a meeting presided over by Jonathan. Its emergence and the appointment of Akpabio as its chairman is seen as the Presidency’s solution to the growing influence of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum under the chairmanship of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi.
Amaechi is rumoured to be working against the second term bid of President Jonathan as he is believed to be nursing the ambition of being the running mate to Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido.
The Presidency had attempted removing Amaechi from the position of chairman of the NGF by nominating Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shema to run against the Rivers State Governor in the forum’s elections.
However, the NGF poll was stopped and postponed to May after the loyalists of the President realized that Amaechi was headed for a landslide.
Akpabio’s choice to lead the PDP Governors’ Forum in less than 24 hours after the botched NGF polls has been described by political watchers as a ploy to weaken Amaechi’s candidacy in the NGF as there would be reservations about making two persons from the same geo-political zone heads of the two forums.
Both Amaechi and Akpabio are from the South-South.
Meanwhile, more facts have emerged on how the President almost succeeded in coercing the governors to remove Amaechi.
A source in the Presidency, who spoke to this correspondent on the condition of anonymity said that Akpabio was used to make about 15 governors of the party to sign a document, pledging their loyalty to the President and the party.
He also said that the President used the security agencies to harass the governors, threatening that the Federal Government might not be able to work with the governors if they did not show loyalty to the President on the issue of who heads the NGF.
It was also learnt that prior to Akpabio’s emergence, an aide of the President sent short messages to the mobile phones of some State House correspondents that a story would break.
The source said, “You see, everything had been scripted. Even some of the governors just came to the Presidential Villa for a meeting with the President without knowing the agenda.
“It was at the Villa that they were told that Akpabio had been chosen to lead them.”