After months of a tempestuous fight and ill-fated recriminations, it is all over. The last we heard from former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is that he has given up and is walking away from the reconciliation meetings with Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and his four supporting governors. To him, it is no longer feasible investing his time and efforts in pursuing a peaceful reconciliation with a group of recalcitrant governors who have made up their minds to do him in.
Governor Wike, on his part, has announced that Rivers State will not vote for Atiku Abubakar in the Presidential Elections. This is even when the rest of the PDP candidates, Wike says, will enjoy votes from the state. He has gone a step further and budgeted to splash N42 billion on 200,000 special assistants newly minted from his political over-do-factory or as his detractors would say: his delusion-of-grandeur-brewery. Both sides have dug too deep, too entrenched in their positions to give room for a mutually agreeable solution. So Iyorchia Ayu remains PDP National Chairman to the chagrin of the Wike group who have now positioned to act as spoilers. Both sides have resolved that the roof should fall, no matter the implications. What a heavy price obduracy is about to inflict on vaunted egos!
Nevertheless, contrary to the assumed meaning of the headline above, NO, Governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, the Vice Presidential candidate of the PDP, is not the fall guy from all the bad blood gushing out of the deep-seated, and now irreconcilable, fight. Rather, the doomed outcome of the intercourse and failed unification attempts have heaped a burden on him, to man up, and deliver the South South and to some extent, the South East region to the Atiku-Okowa ticket. All eyes are now on him as their joint ticket is definitely made weaker by the pull out of Wike and his group. That is five traditional PDP states going rogue. That is over 12 million potential votes at stake: Rivers State has well over three million, (3.2million), votes; Benue State has two point three million, (2.39million) registered voters; Enugu, one point nine million, (1.93 million); Abia, one point seven million, (1.79million); and Oyo, two point seven nine million, (2.79 million).
However, one fact stands out. In the South South and South East regions, it is Peter Obi, and not Governor Nyesom Wike, who is the real problem, the hard nut for the Atiku-Okowa ticket. If the frenzy generated around Peter Obi of the Labour Party holds till the election, the South East, which used to be mainly a PDP zone, will keel over and tilt towards harvesting its votes for the Labour Party candidate. PDP will find itself a poor second, and APC almost non-existent. The case in the South South will be slightly different. It is a traditional PDP zone with all the governors, except that of Cross River State, as members of the party. That is, until the imbroglio with Nyesom Wike and his band of four governors. Nevertheless, PDP is still likely, with serious hard work, to emerge the winner of the zone in the Presidential Elections. The major threat to its dominance of the zone is the Labour Party candidate, Obi. Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu will come a very poor third in the race, all things remaining as they are now.
Though the Wike group is yet to announce who their followers will be advised to vote for or what alignments they are going into, another thing that is clear, thankfully with the emergence of BVAS, is that the joke might end up being on Nyesom Wike in Rivers State. True, he has massively recruited foot soldiers to mobilise the state towards whatever direction he opts for. One nonetheless predicts that PDP will slug it out with Labour Party, and though badly bruised from the Wike schemings, It may still end up winning the state. This is especially so if Governor Ifeanyi Okowa liaises effectively with the large swath of disgruntled PDP elements which include Uche Secondus, (former National Chairman), Austin Opara, Celestine Omehia, Chibudum Nwuche and the whole gamut of APC chieftains who recently decamped to the PDP in the state.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has his work cut out for him. Though a man that is highly underestimated, he is politically shrewd. Where Wike is bossy, loud and outrageously intolerant, Okowa is a man well heeled in diplomacy. He is said to be cool headed, quiet by nature yet a very firm character. From the Arise Television Town Hall meeting he showed to Nigerians a side of him that his handlers must be very pleased with. He showed that he has capacity, is erudite with extensive knowledge and has sound appreciation of issues that need urgent national attention.
But his traducers might point out the now abating political divide which threatened to tear the PDP to shreds in Delta State. They might wonder how Governor Okowa will be able to amicably resolve the issues he has with his political godfather, James Ibori, over the emergence of the popular Speaker of the Delta State house of assembly, Sheriff Oborevwori, as the governorship flag bearer of their party in the state. As is well known, Ibori had wanted his long time ally, David Edevbie, to be the flag bearer in the state but Okowa thought otherwise. With the Supreme Court putting an end to the nomination struggle of who the real flag bearer should be in the state, and Edevbie being the first to congratulate his opponent, peace moves are said to be maturing.
Both Okowa and Ibori know that they have to amicably resolve their differences if they don’t want the state to fall to their eagerly expectant rival, Ovie Omo-Agege of the All Progressives Congress. Should that happen, both of them would surely be the losers. Both of them would them suffer the indignity of having their party become the opposition party in the state. They both know that Omo-Agege, will not be an easy meat to handle if through their recalcitrance, he emerges governor of the state.
Chief Ibori being a friend of the Presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar; and Ifeanyi Okowa being the Vice Presidential candidate of the party, it is in their common interest that their party wins the state at the Presidential, governorship and state of House of Assembly elections. This is what convinces one that both leaders who love power, will sheathe their swords, in their personal interest and that of their party the PDP. They seemingly have no other choice except they want to toe the Wike war path.
That notwithstanding, most people are now more convinced about the suitability of Okowa for the vice presidential race with Atiku. He has shown himself to be cool headed, not ostentatious or flamboyant. As a Christian Ibo, their hope is that his pairing with Atiku will endear some segment of the society which the Wike shenanigans would have otherwise alienated. It is onerous on him now to bring the entire PDP in the South South and South East into the party’s umbrella. A lot rests on him bringing about unity in the two zones and in mobilising their members, in a unity of purpose, to turn out the votes in favour of the Atiku-Okowa ticket on election day. How he goes about it will make a lot of difference to the fortunes of the PDP, not just in the Presidential Elections, but also in the National Assembly, governorship and States Houses of Assembly elections.
Mideno Bayagbon