The chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Tony Anenih, is leading other top leaders of the board in a renewed effort to end the well-publicised rift between President Goodluck Jonathan and his estranged political godfather, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Anenih and his team, it was learnt, have the president’s blessing and have resolved to intervene at the BoT meeting scheduled for next week in Abuja. Their intervention, sources in the BoT said, is to ensure that the ruling party goes into 2015 a united house.
President Jonathan and Obasanjo had engaged in a game of denial last year over speculation that their once rosy relationship had turned sour and what proved to be incontrovertible evidence that their relationship had broken down irretrievably, was the exchange of open letters on some burning national issues at the tail-end of 2013.
Since the exchange of letters became public and the tension it generated in the polity heightened, moves have been made to reconcile both leaders to enable the PDP settle down to the rigours of strategizing for 2015 electioneering campaigns.
A top PDP BoT member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a lot was being done underground to reconcile the two leaders of the party.
“It is true that the Board of Trustees of our party has resolved to intervene in the feud between President Jonathan and former president Obasanjo. The matter must be urgently resolved in order to put the party back on the track as we approach the general elections.
“Nobody is happy with the situation and a lot is being done behind the scenes to address it and reconcile the two leaders. The party needs the two of them operating on the same page in order to stop the opposition from destroying the country,” he said.
“Whether it is on the agenda [of the BoT] or not, we are deliberating on the issue with a view to bringing the two leaders together.
“It is when they are together that our party can move forward. Our chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, is interested and we the trustees are also interested. We don’t mind going to meet Obasanjo in Ota or Abeokuta. We have the support of President Jonathan who is the leader of the party”, he added.
The source explained President Jonathan’s dilemma in replying the former president’s letter saying, “He would have shelved the idea but doing so would mean admitting all the grave allegations leveled against him, and replying the letter would escalate it. But it was a situation when silence was no longer golden”.
silence is always golden