PDP SPLITSVILLE: Baraje Faction Threatens Bamanga Tukur With Jail

The New PDP, under the leadership of Alhaji Abubakar Baraje, has asked its lawyers to press contempt charges against Alhaji Bamanga Tukur for flouting the orders of a Lagos High Court which asked both sides to maintain the status quo pending the resolution of the case before it on who should lead the party.
A statement issued last night by the National Secretary of the Baraje-PDP, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, condemned the press conference addressed by Tukur in Abuja on Wednesday during which he threatened to sack members of the National Assembly who have declared support for it, and arrest its officers.
Recalling the instructions of the court, Oyinlola said his faction would ask the court to commit Tukur to jail for his disdain for the law and the judicial system.
"We have always been saying it that Tukur represents everything that must not be seen in a democratic organization,” he stressed. “His statement demonstrates not just impunity but also lawlessness and crass ignorance of the tenets of the law and democratic ethos.”
Oyinlola said Tukur displayed his disdain for law and order with his threat to order the arrest of law abiding persons in a democracy.
“We ask what powers he has under our laws to make that statement and what gave him the impression that Nigeria has become a police state where impunity reigns and citizens can be arrested at the whim of any power drunk tzar. Fortunately, our country is a democracy under the rule of law and not under the rule of man. The police and our other security agencies cannot be used to further such agenda as being nurtured in the dictatorial mind of Tukur.”
He asserted that only an ignorant person would threaten to sack elected Senators and Representatives for staying on the side of truth, justice and fairness, reminding Tukur that members of the National Assembly were elected by the people of Nigeria and are not his appointees whom he can dismiss like the minions in his private residence.
On Tukur’s reference to the Baraje-led leadership of the PDP as “impostors,” Oyinlola asked if Tukur does not know that the endorsement of their faction’s cause by elected representatives of the people across all tiers of government has vindicated their position that what they represent in the party today is what the people want.
“We challenge him to call out those who are with him in his clear journey to perdition even as we add that Tukur should come to terms with the reality of the end of his reign.