Posted by By STEVE NWOSU on
The dispatch, last week, of former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babamasi Babangida to Guinea by President Olusegun Obasanjo appears to have undescored the rapproachment between the two retired Generals and sent omnious signals to the PDP presidential candidate, Governor Umaru Yar'Adua.
The dispatch, last week, of former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babamasi Babangida to Guinea by President Olusegun Obasanjo appears to have undescored the rapproachment between the two retired Generals and sent omnious signals to the PDP presidential candidate, Governor Umaru Yar'Adua.
IBB was been sent by Obasanjo as his envoy to help restore peace to the West African country that had been literally grounded by several months of popular protests.
However, Saturday Sun exclusively gathered that the Guinea assignment could be the first step towards bringing IBB back into the thick of the PDP, as Option B presidential candidate, as pressure continues to mount on Yar'Adua to reconsider his bid to succeed Obasanjo in office.
The increased pressure, a presidency source revealed, is informed by the increasingly clear fact that most of the PDP governors might indeed not be working for the actualisation of the Yar'Adua presidency - a development that could jeopardise the chances of the PDP producing the next government in Aso Rock.
The governors are said to be still peeved at the way the Katsina State Governor emerged the party's flag bearer and the cruelty of the presidency and the party leadership which also refused to compensate any of them (the more prominent ones) with the VP ticket.
A security source close to the presidency had told Saturday Sun that key officers of the Yar'Adua campaign team had openly complained that the governors were not with Yar'Adua. In fact, they noted that only two South-south governors have religiously kept to their financial commitment to the campaign and that even at that, it was still not clear whether they were not in it because the presidency is holding them at a spot they cannot easily wriggle out from.
To ensure that the governors do not embark on what has come to be known in political parlance as ‘anti-party activities', the presidency is now said to be exploring the idea of replacing Yar'Adua with a candidate who would be acceptable to the governors - who are believed to be key for the party's success at the polls. The party hierarchy has since zeroed in on Babangida.
This is coming after a recent statement by the party's national secretary, Chief Ojo Maduekwe that the PDP tickets for all the offices, especially those of the governorship, presidency and the National Assembly remain open till the 8th and 16th of March.
Interim Govt.
Aware that bringing in IBB at this late hour might run into a constitutional hicup with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) - as it relates to deadline on substitution of candidates, the source told Saturday Sun that a think-tank in the presidency had also toyed with the idea of an interim government that would run the country for a maximum six months and make it inevitable that INEC postpones the elections billed for next month.
However, there was a sharp disagreement over how such an interim arrangement could be constituted and who should head it.
A group had floated the idea of putting Atiku to head it, as a way of assuaging his ambition to rule Nigeria, while cleverly pushing him out of the way and ensuring that he did not really come in for a full term as the president wished.
But this did not go down well with the other group that wanted a total blackout of the embattled Vice President. The group reasoned that the president's ego had already been put on the line and putting Atiku there would appear to be forcing Obasanjo to concede defeat in the raging face-off with his deputy. The president was said to have made it clear that he was ready to hand over to anybody but two identified opponents - one of whom is Atiku.
Apart from Atiku, the choice of Senate President Ken Nnamani also came up. Although the presidency was said to have expressed some reservations about Nnamani, mainly as a result of his recent stance on issues in which the president has peculiar interest, the Nnamani option was not completely thrown overboard.
IBB in the picture
The last option that was explored, the usually reliable source said, was the IBB option. Faced with what seemed the devil's alternative, the presidency was said to have weighed its options vis-à-vis the likely emergence of Atiku or Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (both of whom the presidency is in no doubt, have jumbo-size grudge against) and resolved that the interest of Obasanjo - and his legacy - would be better served by an IBB who would not be too disposed to going to probe and rake up murk about previous administrations.
It was then resolved that it might even be better for the PDP to go into the next election with IBB rather than take the risk of an interim government that might not be too agreeable with the generality of Nigerians. It was at this juncture that it was agreed that, rather than continually antagonise the Minna General, it would make better political sense to begin to culivate IBB afresh.
It was based on this new thinking that the former military president was called up for the Guinea assignment - a job that the Obasanjo administration would usually prefer to be handled by the likes of Generals Abdulsalami Abubakar and Yakubu Gowon.
Contacted, a member of the IBB camp who confirmed that the presidency has been courting the ex-head of state lately reminded that IBB had only stepped down from contesting the PDP primaries but remained a loyal party man who has turned down all entreaties from many other parties to come and run on their platform.
The Yar'Adua hurdle
The resolve to gradually bring IBB into the picture, has however brought its own expected hurdle: what to do with Yar'Adua. Although it has been resolved that the outgoing Katsina Governor would be asked to step down, nobody has been able to tell the PDP flagbearer that much to his face. Although subtle moves have been made to hint him on this, by persons close to the presidency, Yar'Adua is said to have rebuffed all of them, insisting that it would take only the president himself to broach such a subject with him.
Carrying the military along
Having a military background himself, the presidency is said to have consciously carried along the military top brass in some of the recent key developments. The presidency has always explained the matter to them as beyond one man's ambition to stay on to power, but a genuine determination not to take the country back to the corrupt past from which it is gradually emerging.
The source denied an earlier speculation that some military top brass had walked out of a meeting with some people from the presidency who had called a parley to request for an additional six months for the present administration to tidy things up and hand over.
The six months you are talking about was never for Obasanjo. It was for a possible interim arrangement that would take care of the lacuna between the next government and the time Obasanjo goes in May… I must tell you, the man is eager to leave. He is tired. It's just that he does not want things to break down as soon as he steps out. That is what all this is about.
'Much as there are constitutional and legal issues to address in Obasanjo's choice, you cannot just dismiss the fact that a man who has worked and interracted with a certain set of people for no less than seven years would not have a genuine reason why he does not want so and so person to get there. He has a better opinion of all these people than you and I can ever have", the source concluded.