FORMER Vice-President and the 2019 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on Saturday, emerged as the party’s standard-bearer in the 2023 elections.
He emerged victorious in the primary conducted at the national convention of the main opposition party inside the Velodrome of the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja.
Twelve aspirants took part in the contest following the withdrawal of Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, Dr Nwachukwu Anakwenze and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen.
The former vice-president polled a total of 371 votes to defeat his nearest rival, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State who garnered 237 votes.
The result of the election declared showed that former president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, came third with 70 votes.
The other results are as follows: Bukola Saraki (70), Udom Emmanuel (38), Bala Mohammed (20), Anyim Pius Anyim (14), Sam Ohuanbunwa (1), Diana Tariela Oli- ver (1), Ayo Fayose (0) and Dele Momodu (0).
A total of 767 delegates were accredited to vote in the exercise, just as 12 votes were voided.
I’m coming to correct APC’s misgovernance, unify Nigeria —Atiku
In his acceptance speech, Atiku pledged to correct the misgovernance that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had brought to the country.
“Today, we are making another history which we believe will bring about fundamental changes in our electoral process.
“Today marks another milestone in the process to consolidate our democratic gains. You will recall that on the 23rd of March when I declared my interest to run. In that statement, I made a commitment to five issues.
“One is to unify this country and that was why I called myself a unifier. And I think unity is important to us because the government of the APC has disunited the country completely. I also submit- ted that I was going to deal decisively with our security and economic challenges all caused by the APC government.
“The PDP once made Nigeria the most viable economy in the African continent, but the APC came and wiped out all the gains. But we have to move and rise up to change the status quo.
“And I am ready to cooperate with every member in my party to deepen the democratic process in our party to get it to a level that it can take over the government.
“Let me appeal to our party members to make use of the internal mechanism inherent in our party to resolve the disputes within the party.
“Please, in the name of Allah, let us work together to resolve most of our challenges if not all,” he said.
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The road to Atiku’s victory
The PDP was totally in disarray after it lost the 2019 general election. Many of its leaders became disinterested in the affairs of the party.
Discordant tunes among them on the factors that led to the electoral setback raged, consuming PDP leadership at various stages.
To calm frayed nerves, the leadership constituted reconciliation committees but the efforts paled into insignificance, due to the deep-seated anger and frustration among party members.
One of such committees was under Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, with a mandate to investigate into the immediate and remote causes of the PDP’s defeat in the 2019 elections.
One of the main recommendations of the committee was that the zoning between the North and the South should be put in abeyance, and that the 2023 presidential ticket should be thrown open to all the zones in the country.
The recommendation sparked a row because it undermined the provision on power shift and power rotation in the PDP’s constitution.
The controversy over zoned dovetailed into the frenzied buildup to the conduct of the national convention of the party to constitute a new National Executive Committee (NEC) in October 2021.
With the emergence of Dr Iyorchia Ayu, who is from the North as the new national chairman of the party, some advocates of power shift had assumed that the presidential candidate of PDP would come from the South.
That school of thought ostensibly led to a preponderance of presidential hopefuls coming out from the South.
But with some presidential aspirants from the North openly indicating interest in the ticket, the debacle over zoning became more pronounced, with groups within and outside the PDP taking positions on the controversy.
Again, different interventions from the leadership of the party could not solve the riddle, thus the presidential ticket was thrown open for all aspirants across the zones to test their popularity and acceptance at the primary.
Meanwhile, the party had screened 17 presidential hopefuls, who had obtained and submitted nomination and expression of interest forms at N40 million each.
Two of the aspirants were not successful during the screening exercise paving the way for 15 aspirants at the May 28 primary.
However, a former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi pulled out of the race and renounced his membership of the party, just as a banker, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen also withdrew from the contest at the threshold of the primary.
Similarly, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State withdrew from the contest and asked his supporters to vote for Atiku at the primary.
Saturday’s bid is the fifth attempt by Atiku to contest for the office of president, a journey he began under the two-party system during the political transition programme of the military regime.
The retired Customs Officer from Adamawa State became the running mate to former President Olusegun Obasanjo after emerging as the governor of Adamawa State in 1999.
They later parted ways due irreconcilable political differences in the buildup to the 2007 general election.
Atiku left the PDP to run under the platform of the Action Congress (AC). But he lost the PDP ticket to the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua. Atiku re-contested after returning to the PDP in 2011 but was defeated by the then President Goodluck Jonathan at the primary.
In 2014, the former vice president joined the newly founded All Progressives Congress (APC), and lost to the then Major General Muhammadu Buhari at the primary. Atiku again returned to PDP to contest the 2018 presidential primary and became its candidate for the 2019 election with Mr Peter Obi as his running mate.
Atiku lost the presidential election as got a total of 11.2 million votes, winning in 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
After cooling off outside the country for some time following the defeat of 2019, the ex-vice president returned to the country to re-launch his bid for PDP ticket for the 2023 presidency.
The emergence of Atiku was remarkable as it was a product of last minute negotiation and compromise.
Governors and other power brokers had to engage in vigorous consultations to avert a possible logjam because of the determination of some of the aspirants to push through their bid.
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