{"id":3033,"date":"2014-11-13T16:21:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3033"},"modified":"2014-11-13T16:21:31","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:21:31","slug":"automatic-ticket-pdp-senators-renew-battle-with-governors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3033","title":{"rendered":"Automatic ticket: PDP senators renew battle with governors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"National<\/a>
National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Peoples Democratic Party caucus in the Senate met behind closed doors on Wednesday to review its last meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan.<\/p>\n

The meeting which was presided over by the Senate President, David Mark, started shortly after they resumed plenary.<\/p>\n

None of the senators spoke openly with journalists after the meeting as they looked distraught while heading for their various offices in the new Senate wing.<\/p>\n

Attempts by our correspondent to speak with\u00a0\u00a0 the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma \u2013 Egba, yielded no results.<\/p>\n

But some senators who,\u00a0\u00a0 volunteered information on condition of anonymity, said\u00a0\u00a0 they had agreed that the work-to- rule action which they embarked upon last week should continue.<\/p>\n

One of them said their action was due to the alleged desperate moves\u00a0\u00a0 by the PDP governors to truncate the \u201cautomatic tickets deal\u201d they reached with\u00a0\u00a0 President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP leadership last week.<\/p>\n

The PDP senators had\u00a0\u00a0 embarked on a work-to-rule, following the outcome of the November 1 ward congresses which they alleged were hijacked by the governors.<\/p>\n

Jonathan, however, reached\u00a0\u00a0 a deal\u00a0\u00a0 between them and the Adamu Mu\u2019azu-led National Working Committee of the PDP at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.<\/p>\n

Jonathan, the senators and the PDP leadership, according to sources, agreed to ensure that at least two serving senators from each state should be handed automatic tickets for the February 14, 2015 polls.<\/p>\n

But one of the senators, who attended the Wednesday meeting said, \u201cWe have resolved to renew our battle with the governors and our party. Our\u00a0\u00a0 work-to- rule will also continue following indications that the party and the Presidency\u00a0\u00a0 may go back on the agreement they had with us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governors of the PDP held a meeting with the President\u00a0\u00a0 after his formal declaration on Tuesday. They urged the President to take another look at the issue of automatic tickets for senators. The governors insisted that instead of granting 40 automatic tickets to senators, the governors should be allowed to take up the issue and review it on a state-by-state basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the move by the governors as a fresh move to outwit and shortchange us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senator added that they\u00a0\u00a0 were suspicious of the plan by the governors and therefore had resolved to send Mark to the President and the party leadership to drive home their point.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWe were told at the meeting that governors met with the President late on Tuesday and resolved that the party should allow them to review the issue of automatic tickets .<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see this as a ploy to\u00a0\u00a0 undermine our agreement with President Jonathan and the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs senators, we are not happy and I can tell you that a number of people are already contemplating ditching the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PUNCH <\/em>also\u00a0\u00a0 learnt that 11 PDP senators from the North-West threatened to dump the party in view of what they considered as the high-handedness of the PDP leaders and governors in their zone.<\/p>\n

A source at the meeting said\u00a0\u00a0 the senators told the meeting that\u00a0\u00a0 PDP tickets were fast becoming a \u201cpoisoned chalice\u201d in the zone.<\/p>\n

According to him, the 11 senators\u00a0\u00a0 also complained that the treatment being meted out to them by their governors was further compounding the situation.<\/p>\n

It was gathered that the senators decided to strengthen the hands of Mark by asking him to take up the matter and brief them regularly.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cIf care is not taken, the PDP could become a minority in the Senate before the end of this year. The danger again is that going back and forth on agreements reached with the highest organs of the PDP is painting a bad picture of the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: The Punch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Peoples Democratic Party caucus in the Senate met behind closed doors on Wednesday to review its last meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan. The meeting which was presided over by the Senate President, David Mark, started shortly after they resumed plenary. None of the senators spoke openly with journalists after the meeting as they looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/National-Chairman-Peoples-Democratic-Party-Alhaji-Ahmadu-Adamu-Muazu-360x225.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-MV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3035,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3033\/revisions\/3035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}