Contrary to the claims of Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, no agreement was reached between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Alhaji Abubakar Baraje-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during Sunday night’s parley at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

This was disclosed this afternoon by the New PDP in a statement issued in Abuja and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze.

“We have read various misleading accounts of what transpired at that meeting between our progressive Governors – Gov Kwankwaso of Kano, Gov Wamakko of Sokoto, Gov Amaechi of Rivers, Gov Babangida Aliyu of Niger, Gov, Nyako of Adamawa, Gov Ahmed of Kwara and Gov Lamido of Jigawa with President Jonathan on how to resolve the self-inflicted crisis in our party,” said the statement, adding:

“We wish to specifically urge Nigerians and our supporters to ignore the concocted tales of Gov. Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom and Chairman of PDP Governors Forum. Akpabio lied by claiming that we have accepted that President Jonathan should contest the 2015 presidential election and that most of our demands are being met.

"The fact of the case is that no agreement has been reached on any of the issues we tabled before the President and until we see results, Nigerians should ignore the present efforts by the Tukur camp to deceive them.

“On whether President Jonathan should contest the 2015 presidential election or not, we wish to say that we have a system of electing our flag-bearers for any election and until the time to choose the party’s presidential flag-bearer comes, any speculation on this is just a mere academic exercise.”

The statement also accused tukur’s faction of not being serious about restoring peace in the ruling party, citing Monday’s composition of a Caretaker Committee for PDP Kano State Chapter.

“We have been vindicated in our claim that Alhaji Tukur and his faction are not serious about their purported search for the return of peace in our party,” said the statement. “Just few hours after Sunday’s meeting between the progressive Governors and the President, Tukur’s faction once more showed its disdain for peace by unilaterally setting up a Caretaker Committee to run the affairs of our Kano chapter. This was done without recourse to either the Leader of the party in Kano State, Gov. Rabiu Kwankwaso, or other stakeholders of the party from Kano. This illegality is a clear violation of our party’s constitution and was hurriedly done just to spite Gov. Kwankwaso, the Party Leader in the state.”

New PDP urged its members in Kano State “to ignore this illegality as we have set in motion the machinery to organise a proper election as stipulated by our party’s constitution.”

It lambasted Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, saying: “We are still at a loss why Tukur and his cohorts do not want peace to reign in PDP but no matter the odds we are very determined to ensure that peace is restored to our party with the prayers of Nigerians.”

The party, however, praised the efforts of PDP Elders to resolve the crisis bedeviling the party and wished them success “irrespective of the evil designs of Tukur’s faction to elongate the crisis for selfish reasons.”

•Photo shows some of the New PDP governors.

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