By George Opara The hide and seek game for who is to be selected as presidential running mate to former Vice President, Atiku Abubak...
By George Opara
The hide and seek game for who is to be selected as
presidential running mate to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, and 2023
presidential candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is
again a make or mar political decision for the party.
Such a decision is usually tasking even with insistently
deadline pressure from the electoral umpire on all the 2023 elections
contesting political parties.
The National Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu of the Independent
National Electoral Commission, INEC, in streamlining the election timetable
recently declared that names of presidential candidates and selected running
mates should be submitted on or before Friday June 17, while names of
gubernatorial candidates of same democratic primaries and selected deputies
should be uploaded via INEC portal on or before July 15, this year.
Yakubu also warned, “The portal will automatically shut down
at 6.00pm (1800hrs) on Friday 17th June 2022 for national elections and 6.00pm
(1800hrs) on Friday 15th July 2022 for State elections”.
However, the pre-condition stated by INEC is an electoral
tradition. And the political parties involved have to make progress on the
election file.
The selection of vice presidential and deputy governorship
candidates is a complex task given the secularity and ever changing demography
of the country. It calls for a deft political consideration to be able to get
an individual that would be in great demand over the blocs, ethnic and
religious divide of each state and across the nation.
But the PDP has zeroed in on some possibilities. Available
indices showed that those in the realm of consideration as vice presidential
candidate of the party are Governors, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Ifeanyi Okowa, Udom
Gabriel Emmanuel, Emeka Ihedioha and former secretary of the Government of the
federation, SGF, and PDP presidential aspirant Senator Ayim Pius Ayim.
In a relative analysis, exploring their personalities, states
and zones they come from should not be without bias to the individual’s
capacity for electoral value even beyond his State.
Though Wike of Rivers State has his innate foibles of
brashness and brazenness that periodically illicit unguarded faux pas, but
intrinsically, he is a bold, daring and dependable politician. Yet, as for his
odds, the presidential etiquette is a lion tamer that can beat the criticized
wildness out of him.
Without denial, however, Wike’s political exploits in the
PDP has made him a must consult. Rivers has 23 council areas under Wike’s
dominance. Scope of his mobilization and influence transcends Rivers to other
States in his South South geo-political zone and beyond the South East and some
States in the north and South-west.
The governor is a political enigma of a sort. He has been
exposed to prosecuting daunting political campaigns and elections. Not only in
his State but in Edo, Imo, Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers States with amazing
successes. Even his 2019 re-election and recent 2022 PDP presidential primaries
are testimonies of his tested and demonstrated capacity for electoral value in
the country.
No gainsaying the fact that Wike is a strategist and
pragmatic politician. He had donated about N7.4b to disaster-struck states like
Benue, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Sokoto and Kaduna states that can be a campaign tool
to impact on the expected fortune of the PDP in the 2023 general elections.
From the sidelines, Wike can also exploit the political
goodwill of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to the overall advantage
of the PDP.
Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa is unarguably a popular
governor in his State and grassroot politician. He has recorded considerable
democratic dividends in his State. The demography of his State impacts on 25
local government areas. Okowa can also leverage on his relationship with former
governor James Ibori to widen his political clout. Still, in some political
circles, Atiku and Ibori were said not to be enjoying the best camaraderie
predicated on his travails and eventual imprisonment abroad while the former
served as vice president and latter as governor under the Olusegun Obasanjo
presidency.
Unlike Wike, Okowa’s capacity for political adventures,
contacts and mobilization was said to have not been experimented beyond the
shores of his State. But he has a good nature of level headedness and war chest
to be a vice president.
Former Imo governor Emeka Ihedioha and Governor Udom
Emmanuel are both popular, loyal and grassroot politicians in their own rights.
It is, however, little known whether the duo have externalized their political
clouts beyond their home States to be able to add the political value expected
from a presidential running mate.
Credited with enviable records, Ayim, also a former Senate
president, had gone through the crucibles of the legislature and executive arms
of government. An experienced political strategist and stabilizer he is, but
lacks an established structure of inter-ethnic orientation like Wike.
With the birth of this fourth Republic in 1999, the major
national political actors through power rotation have been politicians from the
south west and north west extractions with exception of the interjection by act
of providence from the south south geo-political zone. It is an existing
opportunity through which the States within the benefiting three zones over the
years have had the undying attachment to power and orientation of political
unity unlike other agitating zones.
Of the marked possibilities, Wike, Okwa and Udom are from
the more politically organized, stronger and united south south than the South
East where Ihedioha and Ayim come from. Among the trios from the South South,
only Wike served the Jonathan south south Presidency as Minister of State for
Education. He was a trusted kitchen cabinet and political foot soldier that
made him have the edge on others in national politics.
In the contest for presidency, the south east may be turned
into an open floodgate for compromise, betrayal and vote buying. This is
because it is the south south unlike the south east that has not yet got any
presidential tickets for the 2023 general elections and, thus politically
propitious to produce a vice presidential candidate.
Also to be considered is the heavily monetized electoral
process and the transactional nature of politics in the country as recently
witnessed in the just concluded ruling APC and main opposition PDP presidential
primaries in Abuja. No one other than Wike can fit for this expedient
democratic flipside.
Wike is a game changer and his personal attributes have made
him a necessary evil to the PDP and Atiku as a running mate if the opposition
party must be strategic to relaunch itself into the mainstream politics or face
political extinction in post 2023 general elections.
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