President Goodluck Jonathan is believed to have ordered round-the-clock security surveillance on leaders of the breakaway faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
led by Abubakar Baraje, in a desperate effort to foil the group’s
activities and ensure its members do not launch a parallel office as
planned.
Security officials said
that the government, severely embarrassed by Saturday’s walkout by
seven PDP governors with other party leaders from the party’s convention and the subsequent
inauguration of a parallel leadership of the party, was poised to
undermine the group’s plans and bring its leaders under check.
The central objective of the surveillance, our source said on
Tuesday, would be to detect and disrupt the unveiling of a new
headquarters for the party.
The new faction of the party is headed by Mr. Baraje, a former acting
chairman of the PDP, and is backed by seven governors, former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar, and several federal lawmakers.
“While the security agents are determined to stop Baraje and his
people from opening any new office, the group on the other hand is
determined to beat the security, and hoist their flags and possibly get a
picture of the place widely circulated before the security people know
what is going on,” a top security official said on Tuesday.
The splitting of the PDP, the latest in a series of the party’s
troubles, deepened on Tuesday after efforts at reconciliation failed. A
planned meeting on Tuesday to continue with talks was rescheduled,
indicating the crisis would continue.
Mr. Baraje informed
of the group’s plan to open a parallel secretariat on Tuesday. He said
the secretariat was ready and that it was now been equipped with “the
needed paraphernalia of office.”
He however declined to provide the exact address of the new
secretariat, saying that would be contained in the invitation to be sent
out to journalists later on Tuesday.
Other party officials said that was ostensibly to dodge any security
interest, to allow the defiant party members launch the office, and in
the least, hoist the party’s flag and take photographs.
Our sources say the government plans to disrupt any planned
inauguration of the secretariat is a move reminiscent of the
government’s response to a similar crisis in 2006.
Our source said currently some kind of “cat and mouse game” was ongoing between the officials and security agents.
Part of the president’s directive is for government operatives to
monitor telephone calls, and meetings of the respective officials.
In 2006, as with the present split, the PDP broke into two formidable groups, each operating from separate secretariats.
On June 9, 2006, a group led by the party’s founding chairman,
Solomon Lar, and a former Deputy National Chairman, Shuaib Oyedokun, had
broken away to form a parallel faction after accusing the then Ahmadu
Ali-led leadership of sidelining many leading founding members.
The group then proceeded to open a new secretariat: a one-storey
building of four flats lavishly decorated with flags of the party
located in the Jabi District of Abuja.
The development terribly rattled then President Olusegun Obasanjo who
promptly deployed security agents to forcefully seal the parallel
secretariat.
By the following day, the Nigerian Police had closed the new
secretariat and stationed 20 of its men at the complex to prevent
members of the Lar group from gaining entry.
The then Commissioner, Federal Capital Territory’s Police Command,
Lawrence Alobi, explained at the time that his men were asked to seal
the secretariat to forestall an outbreak of violence.
The development terribly irked the Lar group and sparked off a war of words between the two camps.
The Lar group asked the then Inspector General of Police, Sunday
Ehindero, to withdraw his men from its secretariat, threatening that it
would forcefully chase the Ali-led group away from the Wadata Plaza
national secretariat of the party if the police failed to allow it to
operate from the Mabushi secretariat.
No comments:
Post a Comment