APC: Groups Emerge In Battle For Presidential Ticket

From Thisday Newspaper

With the formation of the interim national leadership of the opposition coalition party, All Progressives Congress, the battle may have shifted to the choice of its presidential candidate, as the opposition leaders strategise for the 2015 election.

THISDAY can reveal that at least four tendencies have emerged as stakeholders engage in permutations for the right choice of presidential flag-bearer for the yet-to-be registered APC.

The party is a merger involving Action Congress of Nigeria, All Nigeria Peoples Party, Congress for Progressive Change, and factions of All Progressives Grand Alliance and Democratic Peoples Party. Various groups in the merger are canvassing opinions and taking positions all in a bid to ensure that the candidate they back emerge victorious at the end of the day.

One group comprising mostly prominent CPC leaders and stalwarts is rooting fervently for the party’s national leader, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). Those in this group maintain that the former Head of State still has a cult following in the North, particularly in the North-west, and that his candidature, if backed by a strong running mate from the South-west, can power the APC to the presidency in 2015.

A top member of CPC who confided in THISDAY said there was no way APC could wish away the electoral value of a man who scored 12 million votes in an election that his party went into largely unprepared.

“Buhari still remains the man for APC, with his growing popularity in the North; it will only be wishful thinking for anyone to consider another candidate from the North to fly the APC flag in 2015. Such a plan will not only be rejected by majority of the opposition coalition leadership but would prove very naive in the context of present-day realities,” he said.

But there is also a proposal for the opposition coalition to consider a Northern Christian as its presidential candidate.

THISDAY gathered that a Northern lobby group led by two former top military officers was linked with the plan to get a Christian candidate from the North to carry the opposition ticket. It was learnt that the idea behind the proposal for a Christian candidate was to try to assuage the feelings of those clamouring for a president of northern Nigeria extraction in 2015 and at the same time appeal to the northern minorities, who are considered to form President Goodluck Jonathan’s main support base in the North.

Fingered behind this idea are former Defence Minister, Lieutenant General T. Y. Danjuma (rtd), former military governor of Kaduna State, Colonel Dangiwa Umar (rtd), and Alhaji Abba Kyari, among others. The thinking is that a strong candidate of northern Christian extraction would help to checkmate Jonathan in the North, particularly among the northern minorities who are considered to be his strongest supporters in the region.

THISDAY learnt that former Peoples Democratic Party National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, an ACN chieftain and staunch member of the opposition coalition, and Leadership Newspaper publisher Sam Ndah-Isaiah were being considered by this group as potential presidential candidates.

One source who confirmed the move told THISDAY that the lobby group widened its search to include Ogbeh, an experienced politician and technocrat regarded as a moderate Christian from the Middle Belt, because his candidature could act as a bridge between the core South and the core North and ensure that the opposition clinched a victory at the poll.

Ndah-Isaiah, the Niger State-born pharmacist-turned-journalist and newspaper publisher, is said to enjoy a warm relationship and trust from most of the power brokers in the North, including Buhari.

Another group of APC leaders prominent among them ACN chieftains led by its National Leader, Aiswaju Bola Tinubu, is working towards drafting House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal into the coalition’s preesidential fray.

Tambuwal, a PDP stalwart, is known to be very close to Tinubu and ACN governors. The thinking  of this pro-Tambuwal tendency is that the House Speaker is a moderate Northerner who may help forge a strong Southern and Northern support for APC.

There are, however, other groups working on getting the opposition merger to back candidates like former Kano State governor and ANPP presidential candidate in the 2011 general election, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, and Imo State Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha.

But when contacted last night, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, denied any permutation to pick the party’s presidential candidate at present, saying the issue of APC’s presidential ticket is not on the table yet.

He said, “There are no permutations for the choice of the presidential flag-bearer yet, with all sense of modesty. Whoever tells you that a party that is yet to be registered will engage in permutations over its presidential ticket is not being realistic. For APC, there is no permutation.

“There is even no basis for it, and I am talking from a point of knowledge. At the onset we made it clear that we are going into the merger without any pre-condition on the choice of the presidential candidate, party chairman or any position for that matter and we still stand by that principle.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the opposition coalition may adopt the Option A-4 method in picking its presidential candidate. Under Option A-4, the would-be candidate is expected to emerge from the ward up to the national level.

*