Atiku: Fresh issues over North, South balance

THE emergence of former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has triggered widespread debate and permutations over the power-sharing formula to be adopted by the party, following the outcome of its presidential primary on Saturday. 

This is coming as the 13 unsuccessful contenders for the ticket of PDP take stock of the primary determined by 767 delegates at the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja. 

Atiku amassed a total of 371 votes to beat the governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who polled 237 votes to come second; Senator Anyim Pius Anyim got 14 votes; Udom Emmanuel (38); Senator Bala Mohammed (20) and Senator Bukola Saraki had 70 votes. 

The result of the primary technically meant an end to the agitation by gladiators from the southern part of the country that the zone would produce the next president, based on zoning and power rotation between the North and the South as enshrined in the PDP constitution. 

With the unsuccessful bid by all aspirants from the South to get the ticket, the North now holds the post of national chairman and PDP ticket for the February 25, 2023 presidential election. 

When Senator Iyorchia Ayu became PDP national chairman in October 2021, the belief was that he may have to relinquish the position of the national vice chairman (South) of the party if a northern aspirant should clinch the presidential ticket. 

This, according to gladiators, is because the two strategic positions could not be held by the same zone in contravention of the zoning principle of PDP. 

The power structure in the PDP showed that the positions of Board of Trustees (BoT), national chairman, presidential candidate, chairman of the convention committee are all in the North. 

A related issue on that basis is the choice of a likely running mate to Atiku, who is on the starting block for a record fifth attempt at becoming president of the country. 

ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

• We Can Overcome Insecurity In Two Years If… — Obasanjo

• How Work, Sleep, Phone Usage Cause Spondylosis, Pain In Legs, Arms, Back —Dr Oladiran, Consultant Orthopaedic And Trauma (Hip) Surgeon

• Getting To Know My Father Wanted Me Aborted Was A Driving Force For Me ―Miracle Olawale Olatunde, LAUTECH Overall Best Graduating Student From Six Combined Sets

Several names are being touted within the circle of the main opposition party, Nigerian Tribune learnt on Sunday. 

Names of Governors Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta) and Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), however, resonate more among key party members. 

There are also permutations on the Atiku candidacy on the South-East because of the seeming wide acceptance the party has enjoyed from the zone since 1999. 

The sudden decision of a former governor of Anambra Sate, Mr Peter Obi, to withdraw as an aspirant for ticket and dump the party, as well as the failure of other contestants from the zone to emerge as candidate, is believed to have widened a gulf. 

With Obi and other aggrieved stalwarts like the erstwhile Senate minority leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and former deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, seeking a new political platform to pursue their individual political ambitions in 2023, the chances of the PDP in the zone appears threatened. Obi was the running mate to Atiku in the 2019 presidential election won by President Muhammadu Buhari to secure a second term in office and it is probable that Atiku, in conjunction with PDP, might want to look towards that direction again. 

Aside from the need for a post-primary reconciliation proposed by all the leaders that addressed the aspirants and delegates at the primary, the choice of Atiku, other party buffs asserted, also poses a challenge on which zone will produce the president of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives if the candidate is elected. 

It is not known if the intervention that led to Tambuwal withdrawing from the bid for PDP ticket and rallying his supporters for Atiku touched on power-sharing. 

How PDP elders, others shortchanged themselves 

Meanwhile, indications are that most party leaders at the state level unwittingly shot themselves in the foot during the stage of determining delegates to the primary. 

Many of them had thought that their position as statutory delegates was sacrosanct and chose to offer the ticket of local government delegates open. 

However, the inaction of President Buhari to sign the controversial amended Section 84(12) shut the door against such categories of party leaders, some of whom had encouraged less perceptive party members to emerge as delegates. 

In the process, some delegates, largely artisans or semi-illiterates, cashed on the opportunity created by unsigned electoral law to have their names on delegates’ list. 

They became major beneficiaries of what some of the leaders who spoke to the Nigerian Tribune on condition of anonymity described as dollar rain. 

Two elders of the party cited the calibre of delegates that came from two states in the South, with about an 85-year-old man who could hardly communicate in the English language. 

The leaders’ initial plan, it was said, was to have such categories of delegates to act as stooges. One of the leaders told Nigerian Tribune that some governors directly supervised the movement of such delegates to Abuja, their hostel accommodation and distribution of between $10,000 and $15,000 as inducement for each. 

A sitting governor and defeated governorship candidate from two states in the South reportedly coordinated and distributed the largesse to the delegates from a state in the North-Central under the control of an All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government.