Why governors halted my PDP chairmanship bid – Lamido

By Ayox Ojo

A former Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido, has said governors of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opposed his bid for the chairmanship of the party because they think he is ‘strong’ and will not be susceptible to their control.

The former governor said this in an interview with the Hausa Service of the BBC on Sunday.

Lamido said Governor Bala Muhammed, who is the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, called him and asked him to abandon his chairmanship ambition.

He said the Bauchi governor told him that they could not influence him if he becomes the chairman of PDP.

He, however, said he told Mohammed that the PDP is a party with history and should not be controlled by one person.

His said, “Bala, the governor of Bauchi, called and said, ‘My elder brother, you are stronger than us. If we make you chairman, we can’t influence you.’ But I told him, ‘When PDP was formed, you were not there; you didn’t know the party. You are a new man in it. The party with history should not be possessed by one person.’ That’s what I told him.”

Lamido had gone to court to stop the PDP convention after he was denied the nomination form to contest the chairmanship of the party.

The Federal High Court presided over by Justice Peter Lifu had asked the PDP to stop its national convention until Lamido is given opportunity to participate in the national convention.

But despite the court order, the PDP governors went ahead with the national convention where Tanimu Turaki was elected as the chairman of the party.

But Lamido in the interview with BBC disowned Turaki as chairman, labelling the convention “null and void.”

The former Jigawa governor also appealed to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to join in the efforts to revatalise the PDP as a viable political platform for strengthning of Nigeria”s democracy..