Will Tinubu Trade-off APC Candidates in PDP G-5 States?

The recent meeting between the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu and the five aggrieved governors of the Peoples Democratic Party has fuelled speculations that the former Lagos State governor will trade-off the APC candidates in the five PDP states to realise his life-long ambition, writes Adedayo Akinwale

In January 2022, when the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu informed President Muhammadu Buhari of his ambition to contest the 2023 presidential election, he told whoever cared to listen that being the president of Nigeria was his life-long ambition.

At the time, even though Tinubu said he was consulting, he made it categorically clear that he had not set a parameter of limitation to the extent of how many people he would consult.

However, in July 2022, after the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike lost the opportunity to be the running mate to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku, who nominated the Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, three South-west governors visited Port Harcourt, Rivers State to meet with Wike to woo him.

The three governors were: The then governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi; Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State  and Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State. They were believed to be emissaries of the APC presidential candidate.

This move, however, did not go down well with the APC stakeholders from the South-south region, who saw it as an affront on party leaders in the region.

Against this background, a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of APC, Yekeen Nabena, in a statement said the leaders of the party in the South-south region were not involved in the move to seek the support of  Wike ahead of the next presidential election.

He specifically mentioned former Rivers State governor and immediate past Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; former Bayelsa State governor and Minister of State Petroleum, Timipre Sylva and Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo Agege as amongst those who were not happy that they were kept in the dark on the alleged move to woo Wike to work for the APC.

He said: “So, this is a warning to the Lagos State governor, Sanwo-Olu and his co-travellers that the APC South-south leaders are aware of their game plan in Rivers State, but it will not work because on election day, we will vote APC in all boxes; from President, National Assembly, governor and state House of Assembly. This will also apply in other states across the country. The era of voting APC for president and vote PDP for governor is over.”

Without mincing words, Nabena noted that the only way out for  APC as a party was to respect leaders in every state and zone, and not just think they could “arrogantly arrange your boys to install leaders anywhere like they tried to do in Bayelsa, Kogi and Rivers states by some paper weight governors from the west who solely rely on Asiwaju to win the election.”

The APC chieftain warned that in party politics, everyone matters, and therefore called on Tinubu to caution his men whom, he said, were already thinking of installing leaders across the state with full assurance that Tinubu would be the next President and they would be in charge of the party structures across the states, saying this must be addressed quickly.

Despite the fact that Tinubu’s romance with the five aggrieved PDP governors was already creating bad blood within the ruling party, the former Lagos State governor, it was reported, met with  the PDP G-5 governors – Wike, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Samuel Ortom of Benue State, and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State in London. 

Reports had it that the aggrieved governors had finally decided to work for Tinubu as well as his counterpart in the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi. 

Investigation revealed that while Wike and Makinde decided to work for Tinubu, Ortom was too worried by the unintended consequences of such a move, which he feared might affect the governorship candidate of his party in Benue State. But Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State were said to have agreed to work for the APC presidential candidate quietly for fear of repercussions in the South-east.

To douse the apprehension among the APC supporters in the five states, Tinubu in a statement by his Media Office, which was signed by Mr. Tunde Rahman described the purported meeting with the rebel governors as false.

Expectedly, Tinubu’s determination to dine with the aggrieved opposition governors was already causing ripples in the five states. For instance, in Oyo State, there are indications that the alliance between Makinde and Tinubu might scuttle the ambition of the APC governorship candidate, Senator Teslim Folarin.

It would be recalled that in October 2022, while speaking through his deputy,  Bayo Lawal at the reception of Tinubu by the leader of Afenifere, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, Makinde said they were for Tinubu.

Analysts see the alliance between Tinubu and the PDP G-5 governors as a trade-off of APC candidates in the five states to achieve his life-long ambition. They described the alliance as an act of desperation on the part of the former Lagos State governor.

Nevertheless, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai apparently flew the kite recently when he declared it would be difficult for the APC to defeat Makinde in the next governorship election.

The governor said this at the send-forth ceremony organised for Nteranya Sanginga, the outgoing Director-General of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), held at the IITA Conference Centre, Ibadan.

“We’ll do our best to defeat you. But I know it will be tough because you’ve been a good governor,” he reportedly told Makinde.

Meanwhile,  Atiku’s Special Assistant, Public Communication, and member of the PDP PCC, Phrank Shaibu, accused Tinubu of lying that he never met the rebellious governors, when in actual fact he met them to fine tune a deal to undermine PDP.

Shaibu said while the news of the meeting was trending, two spokesmen for the APC presidential campaign, Festus Keyamo and Femi Fani-Kayode, took to the social media to celebrate the support Tinubu would be getting from the G-5.

He further disclosed that on Facebook, Fani-Kayode had specifically stated, “The endorsement and declaration of support that Bola Ahmed Tinubu will get from at least six (not just five) governors from the PDP this January will finally put to rest the delusion that Atiku will stubbornly harbour about winning the 2023 presidential election.”

He said,  “It is funny that it took three whole days after reports of the meeting before Tinubu decided it was time to put out a statement denying it was ever held. It is also awfully coincidental that the G-5 and Tinubu all decided to travel to London at the same time and departed at the same time with Tinubu proceeding to Saudi Arabia and the other governors returning to Nigeria.

“Incidentally, Tinubu had also in August denied plans of meeting the G-5, only for Wike to later issue a statement confirming that they, indeed, met with Tinubu and other candidates separately. Tinubu’s latest denial should, therefore, be discarded as another lie,” Shaibu explained.

Shaibu claimed that Tinubu demied meeting the governors because the details of the meeting were too messy and the APC candidates in the five states were fighting back.

According to him, there is a fight back from the APC governorship and National Assembly candidates from the affected states where the G-5 Governors hold sway. According to him, in Oyo, Senator Teslim Folarin is reportedly angry at a proposed treacherous deal to trade off his mandate as the APC governorship candidate. The situation, Shaibu explained, is not different in Abia, Enugu, Benue and, of course, Rivers State.

“This desperation was brought to the fore in 2011, when Tinubu removed the rug from under Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and made a deal with the federal government to ensure that President Goodluck Jonathan wins.”

Shaibu believed that all the machinations would end in failure for Tinubu, because Nigerians have decided that their future would not be put in the hands of a man who is willing to trade their destinies for a mere “porridge or agbado (corn).”

It is now clear that what the aggrieved five PDP governors are fighting for is mere personal interest, but whether Tinubu would throw APC candidates in the five states under the bus to achieve his life-long ambition still remains unclear.