•Tips Tukur
CURRENT political calculations in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that favour the likely emergence of Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate in 2007 may have informed the move to draft into the race for the chairmanship slot of the PDP in next year’s elective national convention, the former governor of the old Gongola State and former Minister from Adamawa State, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
The plan to draft Tukur, a presidential aspirant in 1992 and former member of the PDP’s Board of Trustees, into the chairmanship race, as learnt, flows from the purported move to retain the incumbent National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh in office at the forthcoming convention.
Ogbeh, believed to be a loyalist of the Vice President, is from the North-Central zone with former President Babangida, whose alleged presidential ambition in 2007 some groups in the PDP were said to have set machinery in motion to bolster, while Tukur, also believed to have close links with Babangida, is from the Northeast zone with the Vice President.
Sunday Vanguard learnt there is a quiet scrambling for the soul of the party ahead of the December 2005 national convention, where a leadership had been envisaged prior to the recent feelers from sources in the party that Ogbeh’s leadership of the party might be sustained beyond 2005.
The Ogbeh card according to feelers is being played by the camp loyal to Atiku, aimed essentially at scuttling the chances of Babangida’s emergence as presidential candidate from the same zone, which has the plum party position of National Chairman.
As a counterpoise, some elements believed to be sympathetic to the cause of Babangida are said to be working on Tukur from the Northeast in the event that the party decides to retain the party chairmanship slot in the North.
The move being made to push the chairmanship slot to zone other than the zones of either of the two entrenched aspirants is for them to get a better chance of clinching the presidential slot. A source hinted Sunday Vanguard last week that as a fallout of the ding-dong affairs over the 2007 presidency, the party might end up ceding the presidential slot and the position of the national chairman to the North.
The distribution, the source hinted, could be balanced with the ceding of the position of Vice President and Senate President to the South.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is believed to wield a lot of influence on where and to whom presidential power goes, is, as gathered, appearing to be neutral even as there are suggestions in some party and Presidency circles that he could be rooting for a consensus candidate as a recourse to reconciliation option or a compromise presidential candidate in the extreme of a crisis situation.
But while feelers pointed to the possibility of a consensus arrangement that would bring the two entrenched aspirants (Babangida and Atiku) to table for dialogue, they underscored the impracticability of the emergence of a compromise candidate who does not have the political structure and network to prosecute a national election.
However, in the event that the two aspirants stick to their guns to seek the party’s ticket, the likely winner, as gathered, would be the person that has been able to install his loyalists in the Executive Committees of the party at all levels at the 2005 congresses and national convention, which Ogbeh recently said would make or mar the party.
A source close to the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party told Sunday Vanguard that “ at the moment, I cannot talk of what will happen in a month’s time from now, the Vice President controls the NWC. There was a meeting of the NWC where out of the twenty-one members present and a vote was taken, nineteen persons voted for Atiku Abubakar while one voted for Babangida. Ogbeh abstained.
This would tell you that Babangida is finding it difficult to penetrate the party structure as at now”.
It was however learnt that the former military President, who was instrumental to the emergence of Obasanjo as President in 1999 and has assisted in stabilizing his government, is closely syndicating with him (Obasanjo) on his presidential in 2007.
He (Babangida) has already formally joined the PDP, the only national platform on which the presidential election could be won in any general election in the country. He is to contend, as learnt, in real terms with the political structures and loyalty that Vice President Atiku has built within the party since 1999 with the powers and influence of his office in the Presidency: how to disorganise the structure and take over the party machinery nationwide at the 2005 congresses and convention as well as how to get a majority of the state governors to his side for the purpose of the intra-party elections.
Meanwhile, while the key elements in the PDP are buckling under the weight of political moves and possible scenarios that could either advance or cut short their political aspirations, there is a burgeoning conspiracy within the topmost hierarchy of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to scuttle, if any, plans by the party’s defeated presidential candidate in the 2003 elections and former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, to take another shot at the 2007 presidency on the party’s platform.
Sunday Vanguard gathered that apart from Kano State governor, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau who is solidly in support of Buhari, the other six ANPP governors, namely: Attahiru Bafarawa (Sokoto), Sani Yarima (Zamfara), Adamu Aliero (Kebbi), Modu Ali Sherrif (Borno), Buka Abba Ibrahim (Yobe) and Saminu Turaki (Jigawa) are stoutly opposed to the former Head of State emergence as the party’s presidential candidate in 2007.
But while Bafarawa, Yarima and Aliero are said to favour Babangida, Sherrif, Bukar Ibrahim and Saminu Turaki, it was learnt, are disposed to Vice President Abubakar’s presidential candidature and would likely support him in the general elections. But within the ANPP, they are all likely, as learnt, to support the speculated presidential aspiration of Bafarawa, aimed essentially at stopping the emergence of Buhari, after which he might be ready to negotiate in the interest of the party and the nation.
