PDP seeks South-West foothold ahead of 2015

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OLUSOLA FABIYI writes on the fresh moves by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party to maintain power at the centre as battle to unseat the party by the opposition rages

The race for the Presidency in 2015 is gathering momentum. The heat is on the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. Its leaders are not pretending. Even President Goodluck Jonathan also knows that the stake is high. Therefore, he and other leaders of the party, including governors elected on the platform of the party have put on their thinking caps.
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As a result of this, Jonathan and his strategists have returned to the drawing board on how to return the President to power in 2015. Investigations by our correspondent in Abuja showed that the President and his loyalists believe that the votes of majority of people of the South-West are needed in order to realise the second term ambition of the President.

Our correspondent gathered that the President and his team of strategists, which include some governors, key members of the PDP and ministers; are convinced that votes from the South-West would make a serious impact during the 2015 presidential election. A governor, who is a member of the think tank of the President, who spoke with our correspondent, said the Presidency believed that it was even wrong for the people of the zone to work against the second term ambition of the President.

He said there were fears among the followers of the President when five out of the six states in the zone fell into the hands of the opposition All Progressives Congress. In the zone, only Ondo State is being ruled by the Labour Party while the remaining five states which are Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti are currently being ruled by the APC. However, Ekiti State fell into the hands of the PDP during the last governorship election in the state but the PDP government has not yet been installed.

The governor said that though the President’s group was of the opinion that voters from the South-West could still deliver their votes for the President as they did in 2011, it was later realised that the leaders of the then Action Congress of Nigeria, which merged with other parties to form the APC were not as vicious in their opposition to President Jonathan then.

But now, he said going by the comments of the leaders of the APC in the zone and their governors, it was apparent that they would not allow their followers to vote for the President in 2015. In 2011, out of the six states in the zone, President Jonathan won all except Osun State where the electorate voted for the candidate of the ACN (now part of the APC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.

The desire of the party and the President to capture the South-West could be as a result of the number of voters from the area. Records from the Independent National Electoral Commission indicate that the zone comes second in the number of voters out of the six zones in the country. Records from the commission shows that while North-West leads with 18,900,543 voters, South-West comes second with 14,296,163 voters and followed by North-East with 10,038,119 voters. South-South zone has 8,937,053 voters with North-Central coming fifth with 7,675,363 voters while the South-East is last with 7,028,560 voters. Further breakdown of the votes shows that the north has an edge with a total of 36,614,031 votes while the three zones in the southern part of the country has cumulative total of 30,263,937 votes.

Already, the party is sceptical of the support it could garner from the North-West and the North-East following the defection of some of the governors from the zone to the opposition political party, the APC. The governors that defected from the zone are Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwankwanso (Kano), the now impeached governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala Nyako (retd.) Before this defection, some governors from the zone were members of the opposition. They are Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara), Kashim Shettima (Borno) and Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe).

One of the governors privy to the new calculations of the PDP said the South-West remains paramount to the success of his party in the 2015 presidential election. The governor said, “We need to capture the zone because it is strategic for us in 2015. As I speak with you, we are not sure of the votes from the North-West and North-East at all. You also know that both the North-West and the South-West have the largest number of voters out of the six zones in the country.

He added that if the President and his team could get votes from the South-South, North-Central, the South-East and the North-East where the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, hails from, it would not be difficult for the President to return to power. He revealed that the perceived notion within the PDP and the Presidency that the Governor of Nasarawa State, Mallam Tanko Al-Makura, could be a stumbling block to the votes from the North-Central might be the reason for his recent predicament. Apart from Nasarawa and Kwara states, others states in the zone are supporters of the second term ambition of the President. “We are going to avoid any permutation that could lead to a runoff during the presidential election as being speculated in some quarters. We want an outright win,” he added.

Already, the hatchet men for the President have said there is no way the South-West will not be covered with the party’s umbrella. One of the foot soldiers, who is the Special Adviser to President Jonathan on Political Matters, Prof Ahmed Alkali, says there is no way the South-West will not return to the PDP in 2015. He says it is glaring that the PDP is the most grounded in the zone given the manner the electorate in the South-West have been rooting for the ruling party lately. He says it is necessary for the zone to return to the centre by 2015 in order to shake off the toga of opposition with which he said the zone had long been identified. He said, “It is glaring as everybody could see. You can see that the zone will return to the PDP in 2015. We will win.”

And the “Jonathan must win group” is not relenting in its efforts. In order to achieve this, many pro-Jonathan groups are springing up every day in all the states of the federation. Many of them with offices in Abuja have been said to have spent billions of naira on advertisements aimed at selling his candidature. Alkali said he had taken control of the pro-Jonathan campaign outfits, which he said were up to 3,000. Alkali denied that the Presidency was responsible for the financing of the groups, but failed to say why it was unable to stop the activities of the different groups who have opened offices across the country and are already placing adverts in electronic and print media in the country. He said the President had yet to declare for a second term and that he couldn’t have commenced campaign more so when INEC had yet to release guideline for the election.

According to him, “Mr. President has not even declared yet and campaigns cannot commence unless there is a formal declaration of intent to contest the 2015 presidential election. Apart from being a law abiding citizen, President Jonathan is also a true and loyal member of the Peoples Democratic Party and the party has not yet brought out guidelines for the conduct of its primaries and convention.”

Whether he has declared or not, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party, Chief Tony Anenih, has said Jonathan will contest the presidential election in 2015 on the PDP platform. “I want the national chairman to go home with a word from the father that come 2015, Jonathan will run for President for the second time,” he said.

Funny enough, the APC is not averse to the PDP winning the election. What it is against is the way it said the ruling party is going about in its desire to win. The APC said that it would not have been worried if the PDP was going to win fairly, saying that elections are meant to be won and lost. The party said it was unfortunate that the ruling party was using what it described as ill-gotten funds and federal might to intimidate the opposition. The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said that the PDP was giving a wrong impression about democracy to Nigerians with its actions.

He said, “Elections are meant to be won and lost. We would not have been worried if the PDP was planning to win fairly. But instead of this, the party is planning to rig; use federal might like the police, security agencies and other state apparatus to harass and incapacitate the opposition. When you are using ill-gotten wealth to harass the opposition, what you are saying in essence is that development does not matter and that what people in government should embark on is to use state funds for what is now known as ‘stomach infrastructure.’ You are saying that people should go into the government and steal.” But in a war situation, people say every ploy is fair. And since politics is a game of numbers, prisoners’ and even ex-convicts’ votes are important. If you disagree, you may not be a friend of the ruling party.