Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chair Bamanga Tukur has said he is not under any pressure to resign his job.
In a statement he personally signed yesterday, the party chair said his relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan and other key party stakeholders remained cordial.
He attributed media reports indicating pressure on him to resign as the handiwork of those he described as “black legs” within and outside the ruling party.
Besides, he knocked the media for peddling inaccurate reports concerning him.
The chairman said: “I am aware of the antics of some black legs in and out of the PDP who have been funding negative media reports on activities of the party both at the state and national levels. Such antics will amount to naught because no sponsor of such reports would go far.”
According to him, national interest and cohesion are better promoted when the media report the truth at all times.
He expressed dismay that since he assumed office over a year ago, the media had made numerous failedpredictions of his ouster, based on projections of those he referred to as enemies of the party.
Tukur is worried that a section of the media would persist in reporting falsehood about the situation in the ruling party. This, he said, has exposed the inadequacies or lack of depth and professionalism of such media organisations.
The chairman said: “I had hardly settled down in office when some newspapers predicted that I would not last three months. Later, some newspapers wrote that I would resign in December.
“Another one said two days ago that I had been asked to resign. Well, I have spent more than one year in office and they still continue to write the same thing all over.
“I really do not understand whether Bamanga Tukur is really the media problem or the problem of faceless individuals who were manufacturing the miserable reports.
“It was more ludicrous that some people funded a report that I had resigned when, indeed, I was on my way to Canada for an official engagement, and yet our so called media bought the untruth without shuddering. Then I ask myself, where is the sense of fairness and professionalism by our media in this regard?
“The problem is so bad that when members of our party meet and discuss behind closed doors, the media would say Bamanga Tukur is the issue. The media do not seem to know that we have better things to discuss in our party than issue of crises.
“Let me reiterate that I am not resigning and I have no intention of doing so as an elected national chairman of PDP. I accepted to become chairman based on my conviction that I can use my wealth of experience to help my party and my country.
“I am not looking for anything at my age other than putting it on record that God has helped me, and then, I am using the opportunities he gave me to serve the rest of Nigeria to the best of my abilities.
But Tukur agreed that the PDP has challenges.
He urged “all our members to come together to face the challenges confronting us as a party”.
“If we must remain the strongest party that we are in Africa, it is high time we buried the hatchets and then begin to close ranks,” he said, adding:
“It is in our party’s interest and, indeed, in the interest of President Goodluck Jonathan to have us get back on the track while regaining the grooves that have been making us tick, unbeatable and widely accepted.
“To do otherwise is to yield the grounds to the propagandists who have been masquerading as our opponents even with the nebulous interest of getting power in 2015.”
CULLED – THE NATION
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