LEON USIGBE examines the issues arising from the emergence of former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the direction the party may take going forward.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has overcome its first major hurdle in the run up to 2023. With relatively minimal rancour, it has selected its presidential candidate for the poll in Atiku Abubakar. But its toughest task is yet to come – getting the critical stakeholders to work with the former vice-president to give the party a fair chance to return to power.
The primary that produced the candidate came with bruises and perception of betrayals. To some of the presidential aspirants, it was simply a case of the highest bidder. Many felt outdone because they could not muster enough dollars to “purchase” the delegates. Only a few remember their surnames at the mention of dollars, Sam Ohuanbunwa, one of the aspirants suggested when asked why he could not get delegates’ votes. “For me, I was not prepared to give any delegate a kobo. So, at the end of the day, I paid for nothing and I got nothing and I didn’t regret it,” another aspirant, Dele Momodu, intoned after recording zero vote at the primaries.
Therefore, for many of the former presidential aspirants, the primary election was not a fair contest. Despite expending hard-earned resources on expensive campaign organisations and doing nationwide tours to canvass for support, they came away with nothing. It is a hard pill to swallow. Even though these aspirants have given no sign of moving out, enormous work remains for the party to do to go into the 2023 contest as a solid unit.
Atiku has gone round to confer with virtually all his competitors for the ticket to begin his unification agenda and appears to be recording some successes. But all will be watching to see how he manages his relationship with his closest rival and governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who is insisting that he was betrayed by his erstwhile bosom friend, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State and the southern governors of the PDP who he also believes sold out.
The former vice-president’s initiative to seek the buy-in of his former opponents for the ticket, observers say, has been a masterstroke that has brought a sense of calmness to the main opposition party. But the sour relationship between Wike and Tambuwal who swung victory to Atiku by his last-minute stepping down, on the one hand and the anger in the Rivers governor’s heart over the attitude of the southern governors towards his presidential ambition on the other hand, are seen as some of the determinants of the direction the PDP will go in the short term. These are factors that have apparently sustained the post-national convention tension in the party.
However, more entrenched is the Wike/Tambuwal conflict, which was clearly discernible long before the national convention was held. Both men had nearly come to fisticuffs in one of the expanded caucus meetings hosted by the Akwa Ibom governor, Udom Emmanuel, in Abuja, at a time when Wike perceived that there were deliberate moves to scuttle the South’s attempt to get the presidential ticket of the PDP. Before then, Wike was thought to have the ears of the party hierarchy being the individual who had mainly seen it through tough times induced by the 2015 spectacular fall from power while Tambuwal’s position as the chairman of the PDP governors’ forum accorded him great influence over the party machinery. The once best friends and critical stakeholders had clearly drawn the battle line under a political party that was already contending with mutual suspicion over zoning and, therefore, a tenuous unity. Observers believe that how they deal with their differences will be critical to the party’s fortunes going forward.
Wike had previously maintained that he would respect the outcome of the primary no matter what and seems to have followed through on the promise. The party would have been hugely relived when, notwithstanding his palpable disappointment, he said after the primaries: “I made a pledge that I will support whoever emerges from the PDP presidential primary and I am not going back on my word. We cannot abandon the PDP. We will be fully supporting His Excellency, Atiku.”
Beyond that, the PDP is also confronted by the issue of alienating the South-East zone with its decision to throw its presidential ticket open knowing that under such circumstances, candidates from the region had very little chance of being selected. Despite repeated admonition from the like of Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, the party completely glossed over what was seen as a compelling case for an individual of South-East extraction to emerge as the president in 2023. One of the major consequences of neglecting the region on this score, pundits argue, is the exit of Peter Obi from the PDP.
Giving the fact that the South-East had exhibited virtually unalloyed sympathy for the PDP at all elections from 1999, there is more than a tinge of betrayal in the region over the outcome of the party’s convention and this could be consequential on the fortunes of the PDP in next year’s exercise. Besides that, a few important but unhappy politicians like the former Senate Minority Leader, Eyinnaya Abaribe, have dumped the party to create further complications for it in the South-East.
Even though the former ruling party may not be suffering a haemorrhage in the region, observers are of the opinion that it may find it a Herculean task retaining the level of loyalty it had enjoyed in there in the past and as Atiku considers his choice of a running mate, political watchers think picking one from the South-East may go some way in assuaging their disappointment. But will it be enough to heal the hurt, the bitterness and the anguish?
In spite of that, the PDP will be hopeful that the former vice-president has the savvy and the requisite political sagacity to rally friends and foes alike within the party for the main contest ahead. Therefore, all eyes will be on Atiku over his next moves.
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