Tukur Seeks Reinstatement as PDP National Chairman

Bamanga Tukur

There was a dramatic twist to the suit seeking to oust Adamu Mu’azu as the national chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Wednesday, as his predecessor, Bamanga Tukur, demanded his reinstatement to the job.

Mr. Tukur resigned from office in January following campaigns mounted by party members that he should do so barely two years after his election at its convention in March 2012.

He was succeeded by Mr. Mu’azu.

But a member of the PDP, Aliyu Gurin, recently filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking Mr. Mu’azu’s sack and also to stop the party’s coming delegates’ convention slated for December 11 and 12.

Mr. Gurin, a House of Representatives aspirant from Adamawa State, contended that Mr. Tukur’s resignation did not comply with the provision of Section 47(5) of the constitution of the party.

The section stipulates that a 30-day notice be given to the National Executive Committee by a national chairman resigning from office.

Mr. Tukur was joined as second defendant in the suit while Mr. Mu’azu and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, are 1st and 3rd respondents.

However, in a counter-claim filed at the court registry by his counsel, Adamson Adeboro on Wednesday, Mr. Tukur asked the court to grant an order to allow him return to office until 2016 when his four-year tenure ought to have expired.

The former national chairman argued that he was forced to quit the job to pave way for the return of some governors who defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC, to return to the ruling party.

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