On Thursday, a free-for-all brawl broke out between members of the Donga Local Government Council in Jalingo, the capital of Taraba State, resulting in a minor drama.
Their failure to come to an agreement on a candidate to represent the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the council for the upcoming local government elections in the state is what led to the incident, which happened in the Executive Chambers of the State Government House.
The opposite was true—as noted by DAILY POST—as the councils were allegedly required to identify candidates who could be agreed upon, in contrast to previous years when candidates were chosen through the party primary.
It was observed that the Donga stakeholders’ inability to name a candidate to represent the party in the council election set off free-for-all fights, forcing Captain (Rtd) Douglas Neatse, the former majority leader of the State House of Assembly, to attack council members who disagreed with his choice of candidate.
It was said that the previous assembly leader, who got into a physical altercation with some PDP council members, was anxious to force an unpopular candidate on the council members before the upcoming election.
One of the parties involved in the incident, who claimed to have been slapped by the former majority leader, told reporters that the trouble began when all of the PDP’s important local government players agreed to uphold the party’s 1999 zoning system.
The former majority leader, who disagreed with the stakeholders’ decision, stressed that the PDP’s political zoning arrangement in the council would not be permitted to take effect, according to the stakeholder, Garalie Suntai, a former council member.
Irked by the alleged misdemeanour of the former assembly member, he said,
“It is unfortunate that Ndatse, who is a product of PDP zoning arrangements in Donga council, has chosen to oppose the idea that has kept PDP in Donga under one umbrella.”
Adding that
“Why he is fighting us publicly is because 99 per cent of us have agreed to consider the normal zoning arrangement that PDP has been using in the local government, which has kept the people in peace politically.
The former Assembly member, according to Suntai,
“is opposing the decision that can best be described as a unanimous decision,” stating that he is “insisting on ideas that would not only consume PDP in the local government but also capable of bringing disunity among the various ethnic groups in the area.
Aligning his weight to that of Suntai, another stakeholder from the council who craved anonymity, expressed sadness at the alleged inability of the state governor, Agbu Kefas, to allow aspirants seeking the position of council chairmen and councillors to emerge through primary.
He said,
“His decision for the candidates to arrive via consensus would be inimical to the growth of our great party and could as well cause more crises across the sixteen local government councils.”
Efforts to reach out to the former majority leader, who was alleged to be at the centre of the controversy, proved abortive as he failed to pick our reporter’s calls or reply to the Short Message Service (SMS) sent to him.