2023 presidency: PDP leaders woo Jonathan to placate aggrieved governors as crisis escalates

Indications have emerged that former president Goodluck Jonathan may be called upon to intervene in the face-off between the five opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors and the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Telescope.ng reports that it was learnt that some party leaders were mulling a high-powered meeting with Jonathan following the intractable crisis. It was gathered that the plan to meet with Jonathan followed the recent outburst by the Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, who accused Atiku of unfair treatment.

The move to seek Jonathan’s intervention on the matter, it was learnt, was against the backdrop that the key aggrieved governors were his political scions who worked under him as federal ministers.

While the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, worked as minister of Education under Jonathan’s presidency, Bauchi state governor Bala Mohammed and Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom were minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and minister of state Trade and Investment, respectively.

According to a source, who is a member of the Atiku/Okowa Campaign Council, the countermeasure is being planned in light of the notion that the governors may have made up their minds not to work for the party.

Recall that the five governors, Governors Nyesom Wike (Rivers) Samuel Ortom (Benue), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo State), have consistently distanced themselves from Atiku’s campaign.

They have insisted that the national chairman, Dr Iyochia Ayu, step down, saying Northerners should not be the party’s national chairman and presidential candidate at the same time in line with the party’s power rotation principle.

However, Ayu, a Benue native, has clung to his job, saying he won’t step down till the end of his four-year tenure.

The source said: “There is no way we will continue to be going back and forth because of a group of governors who seem to have made up their minds collectively to work against the candidate of the party because of one man whose commitment to the PDP had been questionable for long.”

Asked who that ‘one man’ was, the source said: “There is no need hiding from the truth any longer; the whole thing we are seeing in the PDP being manifested by Wike and his group is orchestrated for President Jonathan.

“We have ample intelligence that these governors are inspired by Jonathan. He benefitted from this party and it is bad that he is encouraging Governors Nyesom Wike, Makinde, Ikpeazu, Ugwuanyi and Ortom to behave the way they are doing. He knows these five governors are fighting his cause.

“We got so convinced about this when the Bauchi governor, Bala Mohammed, brought in his own angle to it. That was unnecessary and we all know that Bala is the closest northern politician to Jonathan whether in power or not.

“So, what the party has resolved to do, among others, is to send a powerful delegation to the former president to plead with him to intervene. The delegation is not going to accuse the former president but to merely plead with him to forgive Atiku because we already know what is brewing underground.

“For instance, today (yesterday), Wike and his colleagues are (were) in Bauchi. Do we need any prophet to tell us what they are up to? We know where they are coming from, but they will all fail.”