Date Published: 11/21/10

Posters’ war resume over North’s “consensus candidate”

Ibrahim Babangida	Atiku Abubakar	Gov. Bukola Saraki	Gen. Aliyu Gusau

Major streets of Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria have been inundated with freshly printed posters of four Northern frontline presidential aspirants on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP ahead of Monday’s anticipated emergence of a common candidate for the North to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan for the party’s prime ticket.

The four aspirants, Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Aliyu Gusau, chairman of the Governors’ Forum, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar have all arrived in Abuja and were Sunday night locked in marathon meetings.

Sources close to the meetings disclosed to Pointblanknews that the meetings were necessitated by the need to “ensure that we come out with very minimal collateral damage when a common candidate finally emerges.”

The aspirants were said to have factored in the apathy and bad blood that often trail such selection of candidates and a possible backlash when the elections proper or primary elections come. The need for post-primary and post-election power sharing agreements and possibly map out a ‘Plan B’ cannot be over-emphasized, a top politician involved in the meetings told Pointblanknews Sunday night.

Aside Gusau, Babangida, Atiku and Saraki are said to be “genuinely expectant” that the Alhaji Adamu Ciroma-led panel saddled with the responsibility of selecting a common candidate would push the tide their way.

While Atiku is said to be appealing to sentiments that, but for his war of attrition with his former boss, then President Olusegun Obasanjo, his ascendancy to the position of president after Obasanjo would have been “history,” Saraki is reportedly brandishing the support he purportedly have from his colleague-governors.

Atiku is also said to be banking on support from the remnants of the PDM, the political platform of the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, in PDP, as well some of his remaining loyalists in PDP’s National Executive Committee (NEC), to be able to pull the rug off Jonathan’s feet.

Sources close to the meeting are said to be “unsure” if Babangida is really interested in squaring up against Jonathan in the PDP presidential primary election “or merely wants to play the role of a super godfather who can throw the spanner in the works of any candidate any time he so desires.”

In a recent exclusive interview, Babangida told Pointblanknews that there would no conflict of interests amongst the four presidential contenders if any one of them emerges. “The four of us signed the agreement to back any of us that emerges,” said the former Head of state.

On what their next line of action would be in the event their preferred candidate lost to Jonathan, he said: “I don’t know of any Plan B. All I know is that in simple arithmetic, if we come out with a common candidate there will not be any dissipation of energy and resources, and that there will be consolidation of votes. So, the chances of winning the primary election are brighter.”