PDP Chairman In Trouble Over Son’s Involvement In Subsidy Fraud

The new National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Bamanga Tukur, may soon become the former chairman of the party following the embarrassing involvement of his son, Mahmud in the oil subsidy scandal.
Indications to effect emerged in Abuja today when the members of the National Working Committee of the party met at the party secretariat in the city.
A source told SaharaReporters that members of the NWC were of the view that the President may soon ask Tukur to vacate his position on account of his son’s involvement in the oil subsidy mess.  He is listed among the first suspects to be arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
We also learned that Tukur’s aides have already been asked by members of the NWC to steer clear of both the party’s National Secretariat and its Presidential Campaign office, popularly called “Legacy House”.
One of the key decisions of today’s NWC meeting, which lasted for five and half hours, was that Alhaji Tukur be shielded from the press tomorrow when the party plans to speak on the move by the House of Representatives to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan.
Worried that Tukur may be roughed-up by the journalists at the event with questions about corruption and his son, the NWC decided that his deputy, Dr. Sam Jaja, should handle the sensitive assignment.
Earlier, the NWC asked Tukur’s former aide, Alhaji Habu Fari, to resign his position following a media war in which he had engaged with the party’s National Secretary, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola.  The NWC blamed Fari, accusing him of rudeness.
Perhaps as another sign of Tukur’s fading popularity within the top levels of the PDP, the NWC also told that he would be the one to pay Fari and the other aides from his personal purse since he recruited them himself.
Besides, all of those aides had earlier been told to report at Tukur’s own campaign office, located in the Central Area of Abuja. Many of them, we were informed, resigned their appointment in anger.
Earlier today, Jonathan’s government showed it was rattled by the threat of the House of Representatives to impeach him for poor implementation of the 2011 budget.  Following the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, took the place of Information Minister Labaran Maku to plead with the Representatives that the government was doing its best.
“I think the point is that Mr. President is determined to implement this budget as fully as possible and therefore we will be moving towards the figure of as full implementation as we can by the end of the year because the budget was made for the whole year,” she told State House correspondents.