… Insists North shouldn’t govern after 8 years
Indications have emerged that the campaign to return power to the South may be back on track with former President Olusegun Obasanjo leading the charge.
This is despite the emergence of a northerner as the presidential flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is the major opposition party, amidst rumours of the ruling All Progressives Alliance (APC) was shopping for a consensus candidate from the North.
Blueprint reliably gathered that Obasanjo, who has been openly critical of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, has insisted that the 2023 presidency should be zoned to the South, in the interest of equity and fairness.
A source close to the former president told our correspondent that Obasanjo was not pleased with the choice of his former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, as the PDP presidential candidate and was already moving against him.
Atiku had fallen out of grace with Obasanjo in the run up to the 2003 general elections for reportedly working against his principle’s second term bid.
“After the PDP Special Convention on May 28, 2022, Chief Obasanjo had expressed displeasure over the outcome of the convention which threw up Atiku Abubakar as the party’s flag bearer,” the source, who did not want to be named, told our correspondent.
He said Obasanjo vowed to work against his former ally, who he has at different times called unprintable names, insisting he could not be trusted.
According to the close associate of the former president, “OBJ had urged Peter Obi, who is the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), to work with the Rivers state Governor, Nyesom Wike, who was Atiku’s closest rival at the primary election.
“The governor was betrayed by some of his fellow governors and close ally despite his huge contributions to the party and these individuals. So he is unhappy with the party and the outcome of the primary election.”
Speaking further, he said Obasanjo had met with the former Governor of Cross River state, Donald Duke, to discuss his commitment to move power back to the South and had mandated him to reach out to Governor Wike and other aggrieved members of the PDP, as well as to rally his own people especially from the South.
“The former governor is to persuade Wike is to support Obi’s campaign and lend underground support and possibly finance him because he is aggrieved.
“OBJ said all hands must be on deck to make power return to the South, arguing that Nigeria should not be governed by the North after eight years.”
The source further stated that, “Duke, who described the outcome of the PDP convention as an impulsive decision to embarrass Wike and the South, pledged to implement the former president’s command.
“According to him, it will be counter-productive to the South-south and South-east and set them back if they are schemed out hence they needed to come out and form and a formidable opposition against the North.”
Obasanjo, who is out of the country, is scheduled to meet with Duke, Wike, Obi, and other strategic members of the team when he returned, the source added.
