As underground plans for the 2023 Presidency intensify in Nigeria, the zoning of the presidential ticket may be a big challenge to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as there are reports that the party may not be in a hurry to do so because of likely backlash.
New Telegraph reports that already, governors elected on the platform of the party are said to be at loggerheads over their 2023 political ambitions, suggesting that all is not well within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum.
According to the report, the party’s second-term governors are at loggerheads over their political ambitions in 2023.
Last week, PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, was forced to call an emergency press conference, to react to news reports concerning the party’s presidential ticket in the next election.
He told journalists at the briefing that PDP is yet to discuss the 2023 presidential election. Despite Ologbondiyan’s statement, sources say all is not well within Nigeria’s main opposition party.
A recent report stated the party was divided into two: the second-term governors’ camp and the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike’s camp.
“The two camps are fighting deadly and bitter over the control of the party’s machinery,” a source quoted in the report said.
“Wike will be completing his second term in office in 2023, so also about nine other PDP governors.
“The Rivers State Governor is said to be nursing the ambition of running with his Sokoto State counterpart, Aminu Tambuwal, for the presidency in 2023.
Tambuwal sought the PDP ticket in 2019 but lost to Atiku. But the other second term governors who are not comfortable with Wike’s ‘influence’ in the PDP, are said to be working to thwart this move.
“There is a fierce battle over the control of the party machinery between Wike and other governors, otherwise known as the second term governors of the party in Sokoto, Benue, Taraba, Ebonyi, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Enugu and Delta.
“It is a fact that Wike almost single-handedly installed the present National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus. This is evident to any keen observer, where the leadership of the PDP belongs.
“Although all of them belong to the second term group, they are up in arms against their colleague from Rivers, ostensibly because of the 2023 elections,” another party source said.
(New Telegraph)
