Contrary to expectations, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) has indicated that its next national chairman will come from the North. The implication is that the party may zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the South, going by the party’s zoning formula since 1999. But as its National Executive Committee (NEC) meets tomorrow to ratify the report of the Zoning Committee, GBADE OGUNWALE reports that it is not yet Uhuru for the South, as the national executive body may introduce a new twist to the scramble for the party’s presidential ticket.
The various power blocs within the main opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) have embarked on a last-minute make or mar battle to reposition their regions for the 2023 presidential ticket. The last-minute decision by the Zoning Committee, chaired by Enugu State’s Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to zone the chair to the North, caught many by surprise. Before the Ugwuanyi Committee announced that the party’s national chairmanship position has been zoned to the North, prospective aspirants for the office were all from the South, mainly the Southwest geo-political zone.
However, it was gathered that PDP governors from the South and other key stakeholders from the region had demanded a rejig of the zoning formula already proposed by the committee. Their demand was said to have resulted in the eventual change in arrangement. This has ignited a flurry of deft political moves by prospective presidential aspirants of northern extraction.
Beside the ratification of the new zoning formula for the chairmanship and other National Working Committee (NWC) positions, the NEC is expected to come up with a decision on the zoning of the presidential ticket during its meeting tomorrow (Thursday). Many have predicted that the NEC may resolve to throw open the contest for the presidential ticket. That would set the stage for the game of numbers that has always favoured aspirants from the North in many contests in the past.
The new twist in the party’s zoning arrangement has thrown up more questions than answers: What happens if a presidential flag bearer eventually emerges from the North? Will the PDP go into the election with both the party chairman and presidential candidate from the North? This is where the party may run into fresh turbulence because the North would have to relinquish the chairmanship or the presidential ticket to the South. Will the power brokers from the South agree to play the second fiddle in 2023? If they do, how would the eight PDP governors from the South explain to their people back home that they traded the presidential ticket for the party chair?
It is not a secret that the PDP governors pull all the strings and often influence most critical decisions taken by the party. Of the 13 governors elected on the party’s platform, eight are from the South, while the North has five. The governors from the South are Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta); Seyi Makinde (Oyo); Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom); Nyesom Wike (Rivers); Duoye Diri (Bayelsa); Godwin Obaseki (Edo); Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Okezie Ikpeazu Abia). Their five counterparts from the North are Ahmadu Fintiri (Adamawa); Bala Mohammed (Bauchi); Darius Ishaku (Taraba); Samuel Ortom (Benue); and Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto).
This, the eight governors from the South may take advantage of their numbers and stick to the resolution of the 17-member Southern Governors Forum that power should shift to the South in 2023. On the other hand, their five northern counterparts may as well take advantage of the numbers in the 19 states in the North to garner an overwhelming number of delegates to clinch the presidential ticket at the primary, if it is thrown open.
Given that scenario, the North will naturally want to trade the chairmanship seat for the presidential ticket, since they cannot run with both. How then will the party go about persuading the newly elected chairman from the North to relinquish the seat, to smoothen the way for a presidential flag bearer from the region? What if the new chairman declines and insists on serving out his four-year tenure?
Already, with the announcement of the new zoning arrangement, several party chieftains from the North have indicated an interest in the chairmanship position. Similarly, their counterparts from the South have started consultations and reaching out to the various power blocs in pursuit of their presidential aspirations. This is in the expectation that the presidential ticket will be zoned to the South. A few party chieftains from the South, who were in the race for the chairmanship before the seat was zoned to the North, have since retreated into their shells.
However, bigwigs from the North who were earlier speculated to be interested in the presidential ticket are still pursuing their aspirations. This may be an indication that there is a general knowledge among stakeholders that the party may throw open the contest for its presidential ticket and allow interested persons from both the North and the South to join the race.
Will the NEC reverse the decision of the Zoning Committee by throwing open the race for the party chairmanship to all comers? Many are of the view that should the presidential candidate emerge from the North, the PDP may have a difficult task selling such a candidate to the electorate down South, given the deafening clamour for power shift by political leaders and the people in that region.
The argument by those canvassing the retention of the PDP presidential ticket in the North beyond 2023 may not resonate with the electorate in the South. The pro-North elements have canvassed the position that for the 16 years the PDP held power at the centre, the South had occupied the presidential seat for 13 years, while the North occupied it for only three years. They have also argued that the 2019 zoning arrangement, which ceded the party’s presidential ticket to the North, was meant to cover two election circles -2019 and 2023. They seem to have glossed over the reality that the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari as two-term President from the North has altered such calculations.
Analysts posit that it is immaterial to the electorate in the South which political party produces the next president. Rather, their expectation is that after Buhari’s eight years in office, the next president should come from the South. According to them, the fact that Buhari emerged from the All Progressives Congress (APC) cannot change anything. “Those in the PDP should be made to understand that what Nigerians, especially in the South look forward to in 2023 is a president of Nigeria and not a president of the PDP,” a political analyst cautioned on Monday.
There has been uneasy calm in the PDP since last Thursday when the new zoning arrangement was unveiled. Stakeholders are wary of making public comments on the zoning of the chairmanship to the North and the possibility of zoning the presidential ticket to the South. Party sources have cautioned that there might be a replay of the pre-election zoning crisis that cost the PDP the 2015 presidential election.
Recall that some powerful and ambitious northern elements in the PDP at the time had kicked against the re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that it was the turn of the North to produce the presidential candidate. Jonathan’s insistence on having the ticket led to the exodus of many prominent PDP chieftains of northern extraction to the then opposition APC which had ceded its 2015 presidential ticket to the North.
A number of the disgruntled chieftains who defected in 2014 eventually contested for the presidential ticket of the APC but were defeated by Buhari. The 2014 defectors include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former Senate President Bukola Saraki; Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal; former Kano State Governor Musa Kwankwaso among many others. Incidentally, virtually all the PDP bigwigs that defected to the APC at the time to frustrate Jonathan’s 2015 re-election bid are the same individuals now scrambling for the 2023 presidential ticket of the PDP.
Now, will some PDP governors and prominent party chieftains from the South take similar actions if the PDP decides to pick its 2023 presidential flag bearer from the North? Will they dump the PDP and move en mass to an alternative political platform; the same way Atiku, Saraki, Tambuwal, Kwankwaso and others did in the build-up to the 2015 general election? Will the northern gladiators in the PDP cede the presidential ticket to their compatriots in the South for the sake of stability in the party? What is the clamour for power shift being canvassed by the 17 southern governors, eight of whom are PDP members, worth?
The picture will be clearer as events unfold in the days ahead.