A clash of interests between the national and state leaderships of a prominent political party over a senatorial seat in a North Central state is threatening the peace of the party at state and national levels.
The crisis has pitted two diminutive governors of the party against each other after a shouting match in which one told the other to ‘shut up your mouth!’
It has also seen one of the governors in dispute flexing muscles with the national leadership of the party by working to impose his own candidate over the one preferred by the party at the centre.
It all began with three prominent members of the party in the said senatorial district, including an incumbent senator, all expressing their desire to pick the party’s ticket for the 2027 elections.
Aware that the party at the centre preferred the incumbent senator for reelection, the two other aspirants agreed to step down for him at a consensus meeting.
The aspirant endorsed by the two others thought the coast was clear after they all signed an agreement projecting him as the consensus candidate, but he soon realised how mistaken he was when the document got to the governor and he decided to sit on it, trying to pave way for his preferred candidate.
As it turned out, the matter then came up for discussion at a meeting held by the governors elected on the party’s platform to iron out issues arising from the primary elections in different states, and a South-South governor confronted the North Central state governor, asking where he got the temerity to work against the interest of the party at the centre.
But the North Central state governor found the question offensive and asked the South-South state governor what his business was with the goings on in his (North Central) state, asking him to mind his business.
The statement infuriated the South-South governor who retorted: ‘Shut up your mouth!. How dare you work against the interest of the national leadership of our party? The party says it prefers a candidate and there you are working against its interest.’
It took the timely intervention of other governors at the forum to prevent the confrontation from degenerating into physical combat.