PDP and Atiku head to polls amidst division & uncertainties
The 2023 general elections are less than three days now, and the PDP and Atiku are going to the polls with division and uncertainties. The main opposition party, the PDP wants to return to poll after eight years.
The PDP and Atiku Abubakar have been working round the clock to convince Nigerian electorate why the APC needs to leave power. Whereas the same opposition party has more than enough internal crises.
It will have been better if the party and its presidential candidate have succeeded in bridging all gaps and unite all forces in the party. The balkanisation of the PDP would go a long way to haunt the party in the general elections.
Mr. Nyesom Wike is leading other top governors to sabotage the PDP and Atiku in the presidential election. Wike has refused to shake off the loss at the primary election. And he is doing all he can openly to frustrate the party’s candidate.
Mr. Wike has refused to allow the PDP and Atiku to use the state’s stadium for rally and campaigns. That had ultimately made the presidential campaign to be on hold. And it will be the first time the PDP will fail to campaign in Rivers State.
After the primary election, the PDP and Atiku made efforts using the internal mechanism to solve the division. There were several meetings and consultations in Abuja and in Rivers State. But none had produced a positive result.
Wike and his colleagues insist that the PDP and Atiku must sacrifice Iyorchia Ayu, the party’s national chairman. They argue (even till now) that both the presidential candidate and the national chairman shouldn’t come from the same region (north).
The PDP and Atiku must have understood what’s at stake if Ayu became the sacrificial lamb. Hence, they refused to concede. And Wike’s camp wouldn’t ask for less.
For several months, the division continued, communication between Wike (on one part) and PDP and Atiku (on another part) collapsed. Each faction moved on and that has been like that till now when elections are fast approaching.
Even within Wike’s camp, there is still division, which the party and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar can cash in on. Nyesom Wike, the Rivers State governor, has not endorsed or anointed a candidate for the election. Meanwhile, Samuel Ortom has chosen Mr. Peter Obi, even though nothing much has happened.
The division breeds uncertainties. The PDP can’t boast of victory. There is serious quiet in the camp. When something of this nature happened in 2015, Goodluck Jonathan lost the election. He became the first incumbent to lose a reelection.
Will People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and candidate Atiku survive the division? Will they be able to overcome the uncertainties?
In the southwest, Osun State governor Ademola Adeleke queues behind the PDP and its candidate Atiku. In the same region, Mr. Seyi Makinde is reluctant or refusing to work for the party’s presidential candidate.
The same thing is happening in south-south geopolitical zone. Godwin Obaseki, Ifeanyi Okowa and Duoye Diri back Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. They support him openly. But Wike is foiling their efforts in that region.
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