In the face of plot against Vice-President Namadi Sambo by some vested interests in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, President Goodluck Jonathan has foreclosed dropping him as running mate in the 2015 elections.
As such, those lobbying to replace Sambo as running mate to President Jonathan may be disappointed after all.
In the past weeks, Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shema has been pushing to be named as a replacement for Sambo in the 2015 presidential election. A source in the Presidency told National Mirror that Shema has enlisted the support of the Chief of Staff to the President, Chief Mike Oghiadhome, in pushing the agenda.
But President Jonathan, according to a source, has told his kitchen cabinet that he is not contemplating replacing Sambo as his deputy. “Mr. President is aware of the plot against his deputy ahead of the 2015 elections. He told some of us that he understands the game and that the arrowheads of the plot only want to scatter a united house.
“The President knows what he wants. People should stop day-dreaming. Don’t forget that it is just an attempt to weaken the platform. This, I can tell you, won’t work,” an aide of the President told our correspondent. National Mirror learnt that the vice president is unfazed about the plot.
“This is a game of politics. We are aware of the plot but this won’t work because the President trusts Sambo and they are a winning team. I can tell you Vice-president Sambo is not bothered about the plot,” an aide of the vice president told National Mirror.
A member of the PDP Board of Trustees, BoT, familiar with the plot said it is a rehash of what happened before the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010.
“We are not strange to this plot. In the days of late Yar’Adua, a similar attempt was made to replace the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan with former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, who is serving a jail term in the United Kingdom for money laundering.
So, the President had passed through the same path and would not succumb to any blackmail to drop Sambo,” the source who is a former member of the PDP National Working Committee, NWC, told National Mirror yesterday.
It was learnt that the quest for the vice presidency informed Governor Shema’s interest in the chairmanship of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, and his involvement in the resolution of crisis in the South-West PDP. “His thinking is that these will boost his chances for the position,” a source said.
Shema is clinging to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s factor in his bid for the office. Already he is the brain behind the campaign that President Jonathan should compensate the Yar’Adua family with the vice presidency ticket and that replacing Sambo with him will further cement the Yar’Adua-Jonathan 2007 ticket.
But a source in the vice president’s camp said Shema is no longer in good terms with the Yar’Adua family. “In the past, Governor Shema was member of the Yar’Adua inner camp but he doesn’t represent the group again; he is on his own. In the past two and half years, Shema has only met the mother of the late President Yar’Adua once.
Only recently, he sent an emissary to Yar’Adua’s mother asking if she was in need of anything. But the woman said she was fine and needed nothing,” a source said. The governor will also have to contend with a lot of obstacles in the course of what a source described as “blind ambition.” Most of the Northern governors are not in support of this move.
The only governor that may be opposed to Sambo’s return is Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso. Sambo and Kwankwaso have not been in good terms because of political differences.
A reliable source said: “In his state, Shema is becoming unpopular. The Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, is growing in popularity than the PDP as a result of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s influence. The Comptroller-General of Customs, Mohammed Dikko Inde and the Minister of Mines Development, Mr. Musa Sada, are not in good terms with him while his relationship with Emir of Katsina is impaired.”
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