Issues Of Secrets, Time And Truth, Wike Camp’s Formal Dissociation From The Atiku Presidential Campaign Has Raised
The Oasis Reporters
September 22, 2022
Greg Abolo
@gregabolo
@Theoasisreport1
The big questions that have dogged the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) include the issues of time, truth and the secrets tugging at the party’s underbelly. They remain the Achilles heel of the once known as the biggest Party in Africa.
Wike’s Camp Withdraws From Atiku’s Campaign, Insists Ayu Must Go pic.twitter.com/SUYOHPnwkP
— Channels Television (@channelstv) September 21, 2022
Nobody is talking about Atiku cos he has lost the elections already. Leave him to Wike and Bode George…they'll take good care of hos tears
— Zuweirah of Lokoja (@zuweirahofLKJ) September 21, 2022
Atiku says he’s the Unifier. But a twitterati sees him as subtlety personified.
I saw that right….subtility personified… He is trying to be diplomatic, but very intentional with his approach and beliefs. But people like us decode the codes. We will overwhelm them
— Vehemence (@ugobarca2) September 21, 2022
Here are some historical narratives of the secrets in the PDP as revealed on Twitter by @Maybeks.
“On October 6th, 2018 which was the eve of the PDP Convention, Lt. Gen. Aliyu Gusau flew to Otta to drop a final appeal to General Olusegun Obasanjo to accept Atiku’s candidacy. Atiku was seemingly the strongest candidate to face Buhari, he told Obasanjo. After appealing to Baba with his findings, he got his blessings, flew straight to Port Harcourt at about 3.00am to rally the Northern Caucus for Atiku.
Oct 6th, 2018, eve of PDP convention, Gen Gusau flew to Otta to drop a final appeal to Baba to accept Atiku's candidacy. Atiku is the strongest candidate to face Buhari, he told Baba. After appealing to Baba with his findings, he got his blessings, flew straight to PH around 3am
— Maybeks (@Maybeks) September 21, 2022
Controversial Wike, a Southerner who loves sabotaging PDP internal effort, was insisting Tambuwal must emerge after pushing for Secondus and his men to have national positions. The Northern caucus saw his move as an act that will prevent their strongest from emerging. So they called Wike to a meeting and in that meeting, Gusau asked Wike, “who are you to decide and choose a candidate for the North?”
Wike like a fish out of water was suffocated with reasoning and a post-convention crisis was averted, unknowingly to the public.
Fast forward to 2022, the Northern caucus again decided to approach the convention with a united front by asking Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal in May 2022 to step down for Atiku so the North can get the ticket. While the north was doing this, Wike didn’t work with his Southern brothers to present a united front to get the ticket.
Rather he was traveling from state to state abusing people. After losing, he is blaming Ayu for praising Tambuwal and trying to sabotage the party’s effort to present an organized front in the 2023 election and causing a post-convention crisis.
PDP cannot continue to have a post-election crisis every election year because one man must find a way to use events to blackmail others. Power is not given and the PDP must wake up and end this madness by calling his bluff”. (End)
Beautiful narration there on the secrets in the underbelly of the People’s Democratic Party.
But here’s a response by @Prince Caphriel in Replying to @Maybeks.
“The situation in 2022 is now beyond a Wike or a Gusau. The people are angry and want to take back Naija. You guys in the PDP can make all manner of permutations, but they’ll all fail flat”.
And now, here are the facts of the matter. In 2019, the PDP ticket belonged to the north. It was their turn. So Atiku had it and Aliyu Gusau was within his rights to rebuke Nyesom Wike by asking, “who are you to decide and choose a candidate for the North?”
Classic.
So Atiku Abubakar ran with the support of the south also, but he lost to his brother Fulani tribesman, Muhammadu Buhari.
Going by the PDP Constitution, after the north’s turn in 2019, the ticket had to shift South in the spirit of equity in 2023. To this end, Southern governors held a meeting in Asaba under the tent provided by the Delta State governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa as host in Asaba. They all signed a communiqué insisting that after the two terms of a northerner, Muhammadu Buhari as president, let power shift to the south.
Atiku Abubakar obviously kicked against this provision and four of his tribesmen, also of the same religion, unsmilingly went round the state government houses in the south trying to convince the governors that power must remain in the north, for perhaps, yet another 8 years. Though, what conditions in Nigeria they can improve with it is a question nobody would want to ask.
Whereas these same politicians from the same tribe rejected a plea by a sitting president to run for another final term of four years and retire in 2015.
They further sabotaged the PDP and decamped to the All Progressive Congress (APC) in order to aid their tribesman and co- religionist to win, thus enabling President Goodluck Jonathan to lose his reelection.
Now they are back to the party they destroyed, which was repaired and nursed back to health by mainly Southern politicians and many also from the Middle belt including many liberal minded ones from the north.
The PDP quartet, obviously working for Atiku Abubakar all fought very hard behind the scenes to change the PDP constitution to enable them perennially run for the presidency.
It was obnoxious, repulsive and unacceptable to make the South a second class partner in the federation. But they had no such feelings.
Though the northern clique loyal to Atiku Abubakar succeeded in abrogating the constitutional provision of power rotation, it was only dignifying that the aggrieved had to abandon the Atiku Abubakar Campaign, who to add insult to injury, chose Ifeanyi Okowa the host of the Southern Governors Forum meeting as his presidential running mate.
It sounded like a capture. Human beings do have feelings and sentiments.
How can a man see himself as a perennial presidential candidate every four years in a country of perhaps over 200 million ?
Michael Dukakis in the US, like Jimmy Carter, George Bush Snr, Walter Mondale, Hillary Clinton etc all ran for the presidency in the US. They all lost once and quit the scene. But in Nigeria, losers keep contesting, whether it is the turn of their region or not, and they do not care.
Written by Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com
