2015: Two Northern Govs Jostle To Replace Sambo

The crisis in the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) over plum offices ahead of the 2015 general election has taken another dimension, with two governors from the geo-political North, plotting to replace Vice President NamadiSambo as the presidential running mate.
Also, 20 of the 23 governors on the party’s platform have resolved that the PDP national chairman, AlhajiBamangaTukur, must be removed from office to pave way for any meaningful reconciliation.
There has been no love-lust between the Tukur-led National Working Committee (NWC) and most of the governors elected on the platform of the party.
This development primarily informed why President Goodluck Jonathan directed the chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Tony Anenih and other chieftains of the party to undertake a nationwide peace shuttle.
And despite claims in some quarters that the North would insist on power being returned to the region in 2015, two governors – one from the northwest and the other from the northeast – are allegedly doing everything to undermine Vice President Sambo and replace him as Jonathan’s running mate in the 2015 election.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY learnt that the two governors have declared Sambo as incapable of garnering the needed support for President Jonathan to win the presidential ticket of the PDP and win the 2015 presidential election.
The party said last week that it would be conducting its primaries for all the offices, including that of the president and governors.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY learnt that the two governors in their second term in office.
Top PDP sources that disclosed the tactics of the one of the governors who recently failed in his ambition to become a consensus chairmanship candidate for the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) was setting up of a fictitious survey to portray Sambo as weak and incapable of holding the north for President Jonathan in the forthcoming election.
The source further said that the governor wanted to use his campaign as a consensus chairman of the NGF as a step towards becoming the PDP vice presidential candidate, but the plot was rebuffed by his colleagues.
It was also learnt that affected governor had formed the habit of coming late to political occasions to enable his political supporters hail him and in the process distract any event when the vice president and other dignitaries were already seated.
In one of the instances, “during the northwest zonal reconciliatory tour when everybody was seated including the vice president, the governor came in and disregarded all protocols with his supporters hailing him.”
The second governor, it was learnt, has put his ambition in check since his attempt to emerge as the chairman of the NGF was foiled.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Tukur and the PDP governors has been everything but cordial as the latter have resolved to have nothing to do with the former until he is removed from office.
It was learnt that only a handful of presidential aides are sustaining the Tukur leadership and the last hope of the Adamawa-born politician is the on-going reconciliation effort of Chief Anenih, who has been trying to reconcile the aggrieved governors with Tukur.
But if feelers from the Anenih’s tour are anything to go by, it is simply how soon would Jonathan dump him for his political survival.
“If Chief Anenih asked President Jonathan to drop the party’s chairman today, let me tell you that it will be the end of Tukur’s leadership! But the president wanted the whole world to see that he is not against AlhajiTukur, but the governors.