SENATORS and members of the House of Representatives, who are said to be loyal to Acting President Goodluck Jonathan and who were instrumental in the invocation of Section 145 of the Constitution, confirming Dr. Jonathan as acting president, are said to have concluded plans to remove the ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua.


They were also said to have ignited the search for a vice-president material for the acting president.

The search is, however, being restricted to two zones of the North; North-Central and North-West. Sources said that there were plans to scheme out the North-East because the zone had produced Abubakar Atiku as vice-president between 1999 and 2007.

The decision of the lawmakers, it was gathered, was the resolve of the newly constituted Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) not to be in a hurry to invoke Section 144 of the Constitution against ailing President Yar’Adua as a result of Acting President Jonathan’s reluctance on the issue.

The senators, who met under the aegis of the National Interest Group (NIG) and members of the House of Representatives, whose group is called the Nigeria First Forum (NFF), were said to have met from Thursday night to the early hours of Friday last week.

It was gathered that the lawmakers deliberated on the happenings since the appointment of Dr. Jonathan as acting president.

Sources said that the NIG meeting was stormy because the senators disagreed on the zone that should produce the vice-president.

It was learnt that while many of the senators canvassed that the North-East should be ruled out as a zone that could produce the vice-president, senators from the area opposed the idea.

A source said that the senators from North-East wanted their colleagues to consider the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, as a possible vice-president material.

But sources said that other northern senators opposed the North-East because the zone had produced former Vice-President Atiku for the same post between 1999 and 2007.

It was also gathered that lawmakers from North-West declared that they would support the removal of Yar’Adua if the zone would be compensated with the vice-president slot.

“It is better to have an active vice-president rather than an invisible president who is possibly only useful to himself. We believe that the North-West deserves better,” a source quoted a North-West senator as saying.

It was gathered that those shortlisted for the vice-president slot included Senate President, David Mark; Senators Smart Adeyemi; Zainab Kure and Gbemi Saraki, from the North-Central.

Two governors were shortlisted from the North-West. They are Governors Namadi Sambo of Kaduna and Ibrahim Shema of Katsina states.

It was gathered that the senators were also insisting on securing the understanding of the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the need to ensure the emergence of a senator as the new vice-president before the commencement of Yar’Adua’s removal process.

There was, however, confusion on the procedure to be adopted in removing Yar’Adua, as sources said that the lawmakers were torn between the adoption of an impeachment option and the activation of section 144.

“If EXCOF members are reluctant in invoking Section 144 to declare the ailing Yar’Adua incapacitated, we may have no other option but to go through impeachment,” a source close to the meetings said.

Meanwhile, the PDP has said that it has uncovered a plot by some former government officials, who it said, had ganged up to ensure the failure of the party in next year’s general election because of the party’s effort to strengthen the hands of the Acting President Jonathan.

The party alleged, in a statement released in Abuja on Sunday. that its investigation had revealed that some individuals who recently held sensitive positions in government had been engaged in subversive activities against the Prince Vincent Ogbulafor-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP.

It called for the probe of their activities while in government.

Signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Professor Rufai Ahmed Alkali, the statement said: “From our findings, they are unhappy over the efforts made by the national leadership of our party in conjunction with the National Assembly and the Governors Forum to strengthen the hands of Dr Goodluck Jonathan to assume office as the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

“Having been exposed for the fraud that they are, they have gone underground to regroup and devise further destructive methods against the smooth running of our great party, the PDP.

“After painstaking efforts to determine the identity of these persons and their sponsors, we have discovered the leaders of these groups to be some former top legislators who are now virtually jobless and who have used every available means to draw attention to themselves.

“They are being backed by a media mogul whose electronic outfit is always available for subversive activities.

“They are now operating under another unconstitutional and faceless organisation called PDP Leadership Forum” it said.

The statement, which referred to those behind the plot as political adventurers, also accused them of trying to polarise the party and “set back the clock of our march towards sustainable democratic governance in the country.”

It recalled that in the recent past, the party had cause to expose “the subversive activities of these hypocritical elements that have been hiding under the cover of amorphous groups and who have been shamelessly and illegally using the address of our national secretariat to propagate falsehoods against the leadership of the party.”

The PDP said its supporters had come to realise “the ignoble objectives of these anti-democratic elements whose ultimate goal is to truncate our democracy,” as it advised its members to steer clear of “these people as they are hell bent on sowing seeds of discord and weakening our resolve to approach the forthcoming elections as one united entity.”

The statement further added that “we are amused to observe that these are the same people who only recently held sensitive positions in the country and who should be held to account for their misdeeds, but are now engaged in this fruitless holier-than-thou attitude.

“We wish to assure our teeming members that this latest attempt to derail our democracy will fail, just like previous attempts to distract the Prince Ogbulafor-led NWC have failed,” it said, while it called on party members to close ranks and “resist attempts by disgruntled individuals to ridicule our great party.”

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