PDP Anxious As Atiku’s Presidential Campaign Falls Apart

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been gripped with fear and anxiety following what several top members of the party regard as the poor presidential campaign rallies of Atiku Abubakar.

The PDP began its presidential campaign with an inaugural rally held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on October 10 with the hope that the crisis of leadership gripping the party which has led to the boycott of the party’s rally by five governors and senior members of the party would have been arrested and resolved.

Unfortunately, the party began the rally without those governors, who by several accounts are the strongest members of the party ,and has gone ahead to stage rallies in Edo, Gombe, Borno, Ondo, Osun, Lagos, Abuja and Nasarawa States.

The party has also not included these states in its campaign itinerary as against the first programme of activities it released which showed the party intended to hold rallies across the 36 states in the country.

Apart from the five governors, top party men loyal to the five governors have also stayed away from the rallies.

The development has sent anxiety across the party. Some members of the Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, and top party members have lamented that the crisis is taking its toll on the campaign.

It was gathered that some party stakeholders lamented during the party’s rally in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja that “the campaign lacks life without Wike and the other governors.”

Also, members have expressed disappointment about how the Plateau State rally was held. A PCC member who attended the rally in Jos said apart from the scanty crowd, the morale was “low and mobilisation was low.”

He also confided that the Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar “may be tired.”

He further revealed that a fellow member of the PCC was heard saying the sombre atmosphere could “come alive if Wike steps into the venue.”

G-5 Governors, Integrity Group Take The Shine Off Campaign

Since the conclusion of the presidential convention of the party and the selection of the vice presidential candidate, Wike has rallied round those who were his agents during the presidential primary of the party to protect their interest.

Wike had emerged bruised from the primary having seen the sharp u-turn made by one of the aspirants and long time political associates, Aminu Tambuwal, the Sokoto State governor who stepped down for Atiku.

Tambuwal had waited until the voting process was set to begin before he dramatically mounted the podium to announce that he was stepping down for Atiku Abubakar.

That whittled down the power Wike had garnered, thus reducing his chances of winning the coveted ticket of the party.

Although Wike had promised repeatedly that he won’t leave the PDP if he failed to win but will join the winner to work for the success of the party but later events may have made him reneged.

He has blamed his decision to pull out of the PCC on Atiku’s unilateral decision to pick Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate after the selection committee had settled for him.

Those in Wike’s group include governors of Abia, Enugu, Benue and Oyo States. Others former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana, former governors of Cross River State, Ondo, Gombe, Plateau and Ekiti states – Donald Duke, Segun Mimiko, Ibrahim Dakwambo, Jonah Jang and Ayo Fayose respectively.

The group pulled out of Atiku’s campaign after its demand for Iyorchia Ayu’s resignation was rejected.

‘Dry, Lifeless Campaigns’

Not a few members of the party and presidential campaign members have expressed frustration at what they have described as a “dry and lifeless campaign without vibe.”

The mood has been said to be very sombre, lacking passion with repetitions of promises everywhere the party stages its rally.

It has also been gathered that Atiku has been affected and speaks for less than four minutes at rallies, dropping the same line of promises wherever he visited.

A top member of the party’s Mobilisation Committee confided in THE WHISTLER that “unlike in the past, this campaign lasted for just 20 minutes with the usual rhetoric.

“We haven’t brought new things into the campaign and it’s worrisome.”

Atiku, Tambuwal Meeting To Avert Disaster

After repeated failure to resolve the crisis, it has emerged that Atiku has agreed to meet with Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, the Chairman of the G-5 alongside Tambuwal.

Tambuwal had in the past week met with Ortom in Makurdi with hope for redemption following the belief that the campaign has been very poor with the aggrieved governor.

Speaking after the meeting in Makurdi, Ortom said, the “meeting was at the instance of the Atiku camp.

Ortom said, “This meeting is at his (Tambuwal) instance. We have discussed quite a number of issues including the division in the PDP; the G-5 which I am a member of. He is here principally to see how we can team up and work together as a party.

“I have told him he is welcomed; we are together, we are members of the PDP. But I have said that the leadership of this party have failed to take advantage of the challenges of the party and make it stronger.

“Right from when we held our convention, instead of the leadership deploying its internal dispute resolution mechanism to look at the grievances that arose as a result of the dispute that arose from the primary, no matter how stupid they were, they have failed to do this.

“Rather, it is arrogance, nonchalant attitude; and nobody has cared to reach out to us even when we voiced out that things were not going on well.”

PDP May Not Hold Rallies In G-5 Governors’ State

Sources in the PCC have said the party may not stage its rallies in those five states if the conflict is not resolved.

This will leave the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Labour Party to seize the opportunity to get the votes.

Findings revealed that there were initial plans to stage rallies in those five states controlled by the aggrieved governors but that have changed especially in a state like Rivers State, where the governor has signed Order 22 into law.

The Executive Order 22 forbids posting of bills, posters or related materials in authorised places in addition to the Rivers State Outdoor Signage and Advertisement Law.

The Order also requires “any political party, association or body of persons, who wishes to use any premises, building or structure for campaign to obtain permission from the Rivers State Commissioner for Urban and Physical Planning.”

The Atiku camp in the state has said the order was made to target them in order to stop those opposing Wike in the state from campaigning for Atiku.

However, with the reproachment from the Atiku camp, the anticipated tripartite meeting is said to target shifting of grounds by the G-5 governors “to allow the party to stage its presidential rallies in their states but in their absence.”

‘PDP Will Stage Rallies Anywhere In The Country’

The spokesman of the PDP, Dabo Ologunagba however disagreed with any insinuation that the campaign was falling apart. He said the presidential campaign has been going well.

While insisting that being a presidential candidate is like going for a job interview, he said the PDP has so far staged successful rallies and its candidate has been speaking to Nigerians directly.

He explained that the crisis in the party would soon be a thing of the past as reconciliation is ongoing.

“Reconciliation is an ongoing process. It is not a 100m dash, it is a marathon. There will be areas of misunderstanding, there will be areas of disagreement, there will be areas of discussion. That is why it is called reconciliation.

“There is a lot of ongoing conversation behind closed-door. Negotiation is a marathon; reconciliation is a marathon process, it is not a 100m dash particularly, when the human interest is involved, emotion is involved, interest in terms of personal, corporate or regional is involved.

“What you need to do is to handle it methodically, respecting every part and that is what we are doing. That is what the PDP is noted for,” he said on Friday in an interview with THE WHISTLER.

He stressed that, “As a party we are doing that (negotiating). It is the fact that PDP is democratic, we allow people to air their views then we can move on.”

He argued that what the PDP is doing “is about Nigeria” insisting that the party will also campaign in the five states headed by the G-5 governors.

“What I know is, PDP as a political and national party, will hold rallies in every part of the country it desires in line with the law of the country.

“We have been holding rallies all over the country. We can’t hold rallies every day,” he said.