The Peoples Democratic Party Elders Forum has called on the party’s
national leadership to punish former President Goodluck Jonathan for
allegedly betraying the PDP during the just-concluded governorship
election in Bayelsa State.
The PDP, which had ruled Bayelsa State since return to democracy in
1999, was trounced and displaced by the All Progressives Congress in
the November 16, 2019 governorship poll.
The PDP Elders Forum accused Jonathan of teaming up with the APC
against the PDP, on whose platform he became the Bayelsa State Deputy
Governor, Nigeria’s Vice-President and President during his political
career.
In a statement on Sunday by its Chairman, Chief Benson Odoko, the PDP
Elders Forum accused Jonathan of using the Bayelsa poll to negotiate
with President Muhammadu Buhari not to prosecute him for alleged
corruption.
In the statement, Odoko alleged, “The former President, who visited
President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja for an
undisclosed mission just before the election, kept his distance from
the PDP and its members throughout the period of the campaigns leading
to the election.
“The forum was shocked when Jonathan and his wife donated the Aridolf
Hotel to the APC as the operational contact point for visiting
dignitaries of the party and as the venue for the party’s
controversial primaries.
“These actions of Jonathan clearly portray him as a betrayer of the
PDP which gave him the platform to occupy the highest positions in the
country, Bayelsa State, and millions of the PDP members just to
protect his selfish interest.”
It added, “The argument that Jonathan worked against the PDP because
his preferred candidate, Chief Timi Alaibe, lost in the primaries was
a pathetic perfidy meant to cover up the real reasons for this
betrayal against Bayelsans and Nigerians.”
He called on the national leadership of the PDP to invoke disciplinary
action against Jonathan.
Meanwhile, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola
Ologbondiyan, on Sunday declined to comment on the allegation by a
former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, accusing Jonathan of
trading the Bayelsa governorship poll for the Malabu oil scam.
“I decline comment,” Ologbondiyan told one of our correspondents on
Sunday when contacted.
The PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, had in an interview with
journalists said it was untrue that Jonathan betrayed the PDP.
Efforts by our correspondent to get the responses of Jonathan, through
his spokesman, Mr Ikechukwu Eze, and the Chairman, PDP Board of
Trustees, Senator Walid Jibrin, proved abortive.
Eze neither picked his calls nor responded to a text message from our
correspondent as of the time of filing this report.
Jibrin’s telephone line indicated that it was switched off.
