•Governor Umahi
When it became clear last Sunday morning in Port Harcourt at the PDP convention that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would be the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, a flurry of lobbying and political ingratiating began.
Prominent politicians from the South East who had hitherto believed the ticket would go to another candidate but Atiku, began to fall over themselves to congratulate the Waziri with beaming smiles and hearty and sometimes theatrical laughter and backslapping with Atiku, in a show of optics.
Hardly had the sun set that Sunday, than social media became awash with pictures of Atiku and his proposed running mates. A surprised Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala saw her picture as a potential running mate and sent a quiet message to a nosy enquirer that she was happy in her present endeavours and not interested. Professor Soludo also saw his name shortlisted by the press with Adewunmi Adesina and Peter Obi. Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu also had his name on the wishlist. Even an unlikely Olisa Agbakoba was touted as the running mate.
As the feverish musical chairs continued all week in a frenzy, I warned in a post that the names were all speculations and that at the end of the day, it would be Atiku himself, after adequate consultations with the PDP hierarchy, who had the final say.
And that’s what happened.
Atiku consulted and made his decision and chose Peter Obi, whose emergence as the running mate has been massively received with accolades.
One would have thought that with Peter Obi in the saddle, everyone by now would be thinking of improving on planning and strategies for the campaigns in unison but politicians would always show their alternate spoil sport colours as they are won’t to do.
An earlier statement by Governor Umahi of Ebonyi State congratulating Peter Obi was angrily withdrawn by Umahi as reported, stating a grievance that he and other prominent members of the party from the South East were not ‘consulted’ before the choice of Obi was announced. The statement by Umahi, to experienced body language readers, seems like one from a spoiler rather than a slighted. It has thrown up surprise, condemnation and derision of Umahi from many in the polity, especially those from the South East. It just doesn’t make sense. And if it makes sense to only Umahi and his sulking group of rebels, perhaps some home truths have to be told to them so they can get the larger picture.
First, Umahi is diminishing his political stature by this show of petulance. It’s bad enough that there is already a perception in the larger polity that he, being an open self-professed Buhari admirer, might be one of the PDP Governors ‘working for Buhari’ as the APC has been alluding for months. Perceptions, once planted in minds, are difficult to remove in the long run. Umahi should be circumspect about blatant public outbursts which feeds a narrative of internal betrayal by him and some acolytes within the PDP.
Secondly, I'm told there are some heavyweights from the South East in PDP, shocked and disappointed like Tubaba’s ‘Amaka’, that a Peter Obi was chosen over them, given their believed notions that they are better choices. Indeed, anyone not chosen from that zone would definitely be bitter but aren’t they missing the big picture here? Atiku has made a choice which has been widely accepted across the country across tribes and zones. That some cowboys from Obi’s zone are up in arms against this decision fuels an oft touted political notion in Nigeria that the Igbo nation kicks itself in the balls at times when they are supposed to piss and foam together.
One understands however that schemings and machinations are part of the game and that the larger picture such cowboys are looking at is likely the reality that the man who is now the Vice Presidential candidate has a better advantage of getting a future ticket for the Presidency within the next decade but one would have thought that counting chickens before the eggs are even laid is a futile exercise until the eggs get hatched.
I think a note of caution has to be sent to Governor Umahi and his sour grapers. History judges with both a basket of bounties for a work well done in politics or with a garbage bin for works which seemed well done at first but became the self-immolation of that particular worker.
It would best serve all interests in the PDP, especially from the South East, to rally round the Atiku/Obi ticket to make it a reality, than to huff and puff to bring the house down.
Only that the present house is too solid to be brought down.
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