The Minister of States for Power and Steel, Muhammed Wakil, is currently under fire from some Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, members who are now calling for his head.
The members of the party accused him of sidelining the party structure in Borno state, especially during the recent PDP presidential campaign in Maiduguri.
They warned that President Goodluck Jonathan may lose the February 14 presidential election in the state if he fails to sack the minister, who by virtue of his position, is leader of the party in the state.
The group, ‘PDPGoni.com’, a formidable youth wing of the PDP, which started as a political support group in 2011, expressed the fear that PDP may fail in the state again.
Reading from a text of a press conference jointly signed by its chairman and secretary, Abubakar Musa and Abatcha Haruna respectively, the group said Mr. Wakil “lacks the grassroots appeal and mobilization drive within and outside the party, as such having him as a leader of the party will not augur well for the party”.
PDPGoni.com said they were speaking with the consent of some eminent PDP leaders like the party’s deputy governorship candidate; Ibrahim Birma; a serving House of Representative member, Kaka Gujbau, the state’s PDP chairman, Baba Basharu, and a host of many others.
The group said despite persistent calls made by party elders, including the former Borno state governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, for the minister to engage the group in welcoming the president to Maiduguri during the presidential rally, “the minister chose to ignore the over 350,000 members of PDPGoni.com, thereby denying the event its better colours and attendance; in fact he even declared us as nonexistent”.
“We therefore call on the president and the leadership of the party to disengage Honourable Wakil as the PDP leader in Borno. If we truly desire a victory for PDP in Borno state, the president must act now because we are tired of remaining in the opposition”.
