PDP Chairmanship Crisis: Gulak Threatens Govs, NEC With Contempt Charges As Adamawa PDP Settles For Wilberforce Juta

ahmed-gulakA former Political Adviser to erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, who last Wednesday declared himself national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has threatened contempt charges against the Adamawa State PDP Working Committee, SWC, National Working Committee, NWC, and the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the party.

Mr. Gulak was reacting to the decision of the Adamawa State chapter of the party to nominate Ambassador Wilberforce Juta as a replacement for the erst­while national chairman of the party, Adamu Muazu.

Juta, a former governor of the defunct Gongola State and one of the founding fathers of the PDP is set to be presented by the Adamawa SWC to the NEC for ratifica­tion as national chairman of the party.

The former presidential aide on Saturday warned that any decision taken by the SWC outside him would be “null and void and of no effect whatsoever” except if he was accepted in line with a court judgment.

Justice Hussein Buba of the Federal High Court in Abuja, on December 15, 2015 had while delivering judgment in a case filed by Gulak, ordered the PDP acting national chairman, Uche Secondus to vacate his office within 14 for any other person from the Northeast geo-political zone.

Mr. Gulak, just like Ambassador Juta, hails from Adamawa in the Northeast.

At a media briefing yesterday in Abuja, spokesperson of the Ahmed Gulak faction of the party, Bernard Mikko rejected the nomination of Ambassador Juta by the Adamawa State chapter of the party.

He further warned the leadership of the party in the North-east against the adoption of Ambassador Juta.

Mikko claimed that the zone had since lost the mandate to produce a replacement for Secondus hav­ing failed to act within the 14 days window provided by the judgment of Justice Buba asking Secondus to vacate the office.

Mikko said: “The party was given 14 days to bring another person and it failed to do that. So, the window to do that has elapsed. Anything they do now will be challenged.

“Why did they have to wait for Gulak to activate the process?

“This is where they are at fault. Why did the governors of Taraba and Gombe not call a meeting of the North-east and nominate a candidate? They had seven months after the resignation of Ahmed Adamu Mu’azu to do this but they refused.

“The North-east shouldn’t think the entire party will be subjected to their whims and caprices”.

Gulak further warned the party na­tional working committee and gov­ernors against the national caucus and National Executive Committee meet­ings scheduled for this week, saying any meeting held without him presiding won’t be acceptable and will have no effect in law.

“We shall initiate contempt charges against them. We had notified INEC of the judgment of Justice Buba”.

Mikko, however, dismissed the allegations that they were being used by the governing All Progressives Congress to cause division within the main op­position party.

“All we are trying to do is to bring sanity to the PDP, majority of the party stakeholders don’t want them in office again”, he said.