Opinion: Just Before IBB switches camp

Posted by admin Headlines Friday, December 24th, 2010

It shall be well with the consensus outcome, and it shall manifestly be well for all Nigerians” —IBB

It has, over the years, become somewhat of a problem understanding former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida. It is even more difficult for anyone not to input ulterior motives to his statements or his political moves. But then, the man has proved over time too, that those who take his words for their ordinary meanings do so at their own risks.

So, when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential aspirant declared that he accepted the choice of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, as the North’s candidate for the PDP presidential primaries, many people took the statement with a pinch of salt. Babangida had said the outcome of the consensus, which was spearheaded by former Finance Minister, Adamu Ciroma, must be applauded for the foresight and rigour of the search.

According to him, the Ciroma-led committee must be appreciated for its principled commitment to the advancement of democracy in the country. While admitting that he had been humbled by the outcome of the two-month exercise, IBB congratulated Atiku and vowed to submit his political ambition to the decision of the Northern leaders. With the turn of events, many were prepared to believe that IBB had, indeed, turned the corner. Going by unfolding events, however, that would definitely have been off the mark. For, beneath all the niceties and democratic posturings, it has become obvious that he still harbours profound bitterness over the conduct, and the eventual outcome of the consensus exercise. It was clear that his team saw Atiku’s emergence as a pill too difficult to swallow, especially after many people, including Northerners, faulted the process, which produced the so-called consensus candidate.

Mahmud Kanti Bello, a serving senator from Katsina and deputy head of Babangida’s campaign organisation fired the first salvo, hours after the widely-publicised acceptance of Atiku’s choice by IBB. Senator Kanti Bello was quoted as saying that the choice of Atiku was irrational, while the process which produced him was undemocratic and unacceptable. According to him, the IBB team never contemplated that the Ciroma panel would choose Atiku over IBB, lamenting that they never submitted to the arrangement which they found out, was heavily skewed in Atiku’s favour.

The pro-IBB Arewa Integrity Youth Group (AIYG), in a statement by its coordinator, Alhaji Abdullahi Ladan and General Secretary, Malam Faiza Mohammed Gerie, frowned at what it called, “the political mischief of the so-called NPLF,” vowing that it would not recognise Atiku as the North’s consensus candidate, because he was an unpopular imposition.

For IBB, who has spent the past three weeks mouthing his support for the Northern consensus, it has also been a period for re-strategising. The indications are clear that the pull of the 2011 elections are too strong and he has finally decided to seek any escape route out of the PDP. It will come as little surprise if in the next few days, he ditches the PDP to seek the presidency on the platform of either the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) or the National Democratic Party (NDP), both of which many regard as his political outposts.

His recent letter to the national chairman of the PDP, Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo on the issue of zoning is generally regarded as his first step towards that direction. In the letter, he threatened to quit the party unless it abides by the power rotation formula which the party has already addressed and taken a decision on. The party’s National Executive Committee had on August 12, 2010, decided unanimously that it retains zoning and rotation as a policy for deepening national unity and integration within the context of the right of every Nigerian to aspire to the highest office in the country, under the 1999 Constitution.

A PDP member, Alhaji Sani Dutsinma, in a bid to stop President Goodluck Jonathan who declared his aspiration last September in compliance with this PDP policy, had approached the Abuja High Court, seeking to bar non-northerners from seeking the party’s presidential ticket in 2011’s election. Justice Lawal Gummi, while ruling on the case said that the issue of zoning, rotation or who to sponsor in the PDP was purely an internal affair of the party, which the court will not venture into or adjudicate on. The court also declined the plaintiff’’s request to compel the PDP to zone the 2011 presidency to the North, by declaring that, “a court of law is not a political party regulatory commission”.

The threat to quit PDP on the basis of his own reading of the unambiguous court ruling, betrayed IBB’s readiness to depart from his stated stand on consensus. Not even the overtures made by the NPLF, conceding the nomination of Atiku’s running mate to him, has succeeded in pacifying the former military president, who has been nursing a strong interest in returning to the exalted office he quit under questionable circumstances in 1993.

He could hardly disguise the ambition in 2007, when he went to the extent of buying the nomination forms under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Not even the emissaries from a determined president, Olusegun Obasanjo could stop him, until some damning security documents started flying before his face. If that was not convincing enough, the arrest of his son Mohammed over ownership of large stocks in Globalcom, drove the message home. The prospect of explaining how a lad who had never worked in his life, came about those shares, was not too bright. He was forced to quit.

Having waited this long, especially since Obasanjo started playing from the sidelines, IBB had intensified the prospect of taking a shot at the presidency once more, this time with all his guts.

Will he quit this time, just because some nine men from the North asked him to? It is doubtful, very unlikely, that IBB will fold up his well-oiled machinery and return to Minna.wp_posts