The PDP agreement sealed with Kwankwanso, Dogara, others

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Riding on its gains from last Tuesday’s landmark mass defection by All Progressives Congress, APC legislators in the National Assembly, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was yesterday forging ahead to cement fault lines that may be exacerbated by the entry of the new party members.

The PDP, Vanguard gathered yesterday was also setting its sights on the second wave of defections by governors and state legislators with Sokoto, Kano, Kwara, and Bauchi on the horizon.

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State became the first governor to defect yesterday in a defection wave during which the PDP expects to harvest at least four other governors said to be waiting on the wings.

Besides Ortom, Governors Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto and Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara are among the four remaining governors a senior operative of the PDP confirmed would soon be joining the party shortly.

Reacting to the political tsunami that occurred on Tuesday, senior PDP operatives yesterday assured that the entry of the former APC lawmakers into the party would not upset political permutations in the affected states of the legislators. One senior operative said popular agitation against the failures of the Muhammadu Buhari administration had made the party the beautiful bride for the political class.

Mr. Kola Ologondinyan, PDP spokesman, speaking on Channels Television Sunrise programme on Wednesday, said:

“We are very happy with their defection because it signposts the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has failed woefully, and Nigerians have become disenchanted with the government.”

He added, “The representatives of Nigerians are demonstrating the anger and the disappointment of Nigerians with their government. That is what led to the defection that we are witnessing.”

A very prominent official of the PDP who spoke on the condition of anonymity disclosed yesterday that the party had cemented talks with prospective political leaders desiring to move into the party.

“There is no way we are going to have issues as those who are coming in are agreed with our members and the generality of Nigerians that Buhari must go.

“Are you better off today than you were before Buhari came to power? Or come to think of it, which president have we had as worse as this,” the PDP official said.

Under the agreement reached to accommodate those coming into the party, 50% of the structure in Kano would be given to the Kwankwansiya Movement as led by Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso, the senior party source privy to the agreements disclosed yesterday.

Under that resolution, some members of the House of Assembly who are loyal to Senator Kwankwanso would in the next few days defect to the PDP.

Vanguard gathered that Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau who had until now been the undisputed leader of the party in Kano was not averse to the arrangement as he and other stakeholders had determined to bury their biases under the common determination to see Buhari out of the presidency.

In Bauchi State the agreement with the Speaker Yakubu Dogara led tendency, it was learnt, is to cede 50% of the structure to the newcomers. However, as a party insider said yesterday, the agreement is not cast in stone as it could be reduced or increased depending on the number of legislators that are brought into the party at the federal and state levels.

A similar agreement to yield 50% of the structure to Governor Tambuwal group is, however, being challenged by difficult internal permutations within the APC and also by opposition from elements in the old PDP as led by Alhaji Muktar Shagari and the former governor of the state, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa.

In a seeming move to check Tambuwal’s defection to the PDP, Shagari yesterday declared his intention to contest the 2019 governorship election on the ticket of the party raising the stakes against Tambuwal’s possible defection to the party.

Several APC state legislators Vanguard learnt yesterday had prepared to defect to the PDP yesterday but changed the plans at the last minute. Vanguard was yet to confirm if Shagari’s public declaration was the reason.

Nonetheless, Vanguard gathered yesterday that like the other states that the PDP at the federal level had agreed to yield 50% of the state’s structure to Tambuwal and those who would come with him.

It was also gathered that Senator Aliyu Wamakko, the immediate past governor of the state might not follow the agreement.

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