Nigeria’s ex-Vice President, Atiku Abubakar seems not to be finding his ambition to clinch the 2023 presidential ticket of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) easy as the agitation for a southern candidate thickens in the major opposition party.
While 2023 appears to be the last try for his over three decades-long aspiration to lead Nigeria, multiple sources in PDP told POLITICS NIGERIA that the future is ‘blurry’.
It would be recalled that Atiku’s first outing to become Nigeria’s president was in 1992 when the ex-customs officer contested alongside Moshood Kashimawo Abiola for the presidential ticket of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Atiku visited Obasanjo last week and expressed assurance that he would again clinch his party’s ticket. In a tone of pride, he asked journalists whether there has ever been a time that he did not clinch the party’s ticket.
POLITICS NIGERIA visited the National Secretariat of the PDP earlier this week, and many stakeholders who confided in our reporter accused Atiku of leaving the party in the cold after the 2019 general elections.
His aspiration has divided the ranks of PDP governors, elders in the Board of Trustees (BoT) and some other top members of the party, especially those from the South-East and the South-South, clamouring for equity and fairness.
This was evident in a recent statement by Apex Igbo group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide. They condemned Atiku’s ambition adding that “owners of Nigeria craftily designed policies and procedures to enslave the people of the southeast politically and economically and only the 2023 Igbo presidency will assuage the perceptions that Igbo are no longer part of Nigeria.”
“We wish to categorically state that it’s Igbo’s turn to succeed President Buhari in 2023 and Atiku should reciprocate the support Igbos gave him in 2019 and support one of his most trusted Igbo allies for 2023.”
In a similar development, a South-South leader, Edwin Clark has warned northerners to jettison the idea of contesting. He said; “both by the PDP Constitution and by convention, it is now the turn of Southern Nigeria to produce the President of Nigeria, in 2023, after President Muhammadu Buhari’s 8 years. To do otherwise is to invite chaos, which will lead to the disintegration of our dear country.”
Two major governors, Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State are also bent on having the leadership of the party look in the direction of the South in 2023. Multiple sources at the party secretariat said the leaders had been reaching out to other PDP governors from the North, urging them to reciprocate the support of the South.
The worst blow to Atiku’s ambition, according to insiders, is the public warning by his former Media chief, Kassim Afegbua who asked him to give younger Nigerians a chance lest he wears the tag of “a perpetual or professional candidate.”
“He cannot assume the role of a perpetual candidate or professional aspirant year in, year out, of the party as though the party was established for him alone. It defeats all sense of logic for such an old man to attempt another round of political contestation at a time the general feeling and mood in the country supports a younger Nigerian from the Southern extraction of the country,” he recently wrote.
Meanwhile, Atiku’s loyalists believe that the former vice president is the only PDP member who can give the APC a good fight come 2023. Efforts to reach his spokesman, Paul Ibe for comment proved abortive as he did not respond to calls or text messages.
For the umpteenth time and for whoever cares to listen. Zoning or rotational presidency is one single factor explosive waiting to rock and finish the PDP.