The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, may have headed for the most intractable crisis that can potentially mar the chances of its presidential ticket in the crucial 2023 presidential poll.
Its presidential ticket of a former Vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and outgoing Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, is already challenged, having faced opposition from some southern party leaders and critical stakeholders.
For instance, the Middle Belt and Southern Leaders Forum had already slammed Okowa for accepting to be Atiku’s running mate, describing him as a traitor.
The Forum’s attack stemmed from the fact that the meeting where Southern governors resolved that the South of Nigeria must produce the president in 2023, was hosted by Okowa in Asaba.
Okowa was alleged to have delivered Delta delegates’ votes to Atiku at the presidential primary election of the PDP, thus denying the emergence of a Southern presidential candidate.
THE CONCLAVE reports that there is a growing internal disenchantment among southern leaders in the PDP at the loss of the presidential ticket to the North.
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who was the first runner-up, had given the ticket a shot and was reasonably expected to clinch it, given his records of performance and penetrative consultations and mobilisation countrywide.
THE CONCLAVE gathered from sources in the party that Wike is not committed to Atiku’s presidential candidature of the PDP.
There were unconfirmed feelers as of press time that Wike was poised to quietly work against the PDP’s presidential ticket in the 2023 presidential poll.
In fact, THE CONCLAVE reports some sources to have claimed that Wike had resolved to support a Southern presidential candidate in the 2023 election.
A source said that the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was most likely to get Wike’s support in the race for the presidency in 2023.
The move, as feared, would greatly affect the chances of the PDP in the presidential election.
THE CONCLAVE also gathered that a former governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose, who is a close ally of Wike, is also rooting for Asiwaju Tinubu.
Apparently pro-APC, Fayose had worked against his own party, the PDP in Ekiti, by ensuring that a strong candidate who could defeat the APC in the governorship poll, Asiwaju Segun Oni, did not emerge at the governorship primary election.
As of the time Oni returned to the PDP, the party structure was under the firm control of Fayose.
Fayose deployed the structure in producing Bisi Kolawole as the governorship candidate of the PDP, forcing Asiwaju Oni to leave for the Social Democratic Party, SDP, on which platform he contested with only three to four months to mobilise and came second in the June 18 governorship election behind the APC.
Fayose, as learnt, had entered into an agreement with Governor Kayode Fayemi to ensure that APC produced Fayemi’s successor.
This, as learnt, was to enable him (Fayose) remain the political leader of the PDP in Ekiti, which would not have been possible with a PDP Governor in the state.
Feelers reaching THE CONCLAVE point to the fact that Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde and his Enugu State counterpart, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, are also not happy with the emergence of a northern presidential candidate in the PDP.
Both governors had thrown their solid support behind Wike at the party’s presidential primary election.
THE CONCLAVE reports sources who claimed that Makinde and Ugwuanyi might not be committed to working for a northern PDP presidential candidate in 2023 in line with their original resolve to ensure that the South produced the next presudent.
The PDP is, as it were, greatly challenged, according to a source and might be heading for the abyss.
The source said that, for instance, Atiku could not campaign in Ekiti due to infighting.
He said: “Atiku the self-acclaimed ‘unifier’ abandoned the PDP in Ekiti State because the Party’s candidate belongs to the Fayose camp which he does not support.
“Is that how he will unite Nigerians of diverse cultures and orientations?”
It was also learnt that the political elite in the North relate with Atiku’s candidature as divisive and against the principle of power rotation between the North and the South. President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner, is rounding off his eight-year presidency on May 29, 2023.
THE CONCLAVE reports that, indeed, Atiku’s candidature is greatly challenged in the Southern part of the country and is expected to suffer from the huge sentiments in the South that it is the zone’s turn to produce the president.
The APC and the Labour Party (which is fast emerging as the Third Force ) had produced their presidential candidates from the South, to wit- Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and a former Anambra state governor, Mr Peter Obi respectively.
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