Jumoke Akinjide, Ibadan-born former minister of state for Federal Capital Territory, has said that ‘Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo State won’t make the mistake of working for any other presidential candidate than Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The influential politician made this known in an interview with NewTelegraph.
OYOINSIGHT.COM understands that Makinde and his other four colleagues in the G-5 have been having running battles with the leadership of the PDP for reneging on an alleged agreement to concede the presidential ticket of the party to the south.
Reacting to the issues being posed by the G-5, explained that “my view is that they are only struggling for political space. We would have expected the struggle to have been fiercer in the APC being the party in power at the moment but on that side, it’s like the silence of the grave. Nobody seems to be too interested in aligning with the Presidential Candidate of the APC. It’s in the PDP that it is in the opposition that you find this squabble. The reason is clear, everybody knows that this is the government in waiting and everybody is angling for relevance.”
Asked if she thinks that their argument that the party must ensure balance in the distribution of position is tenable based on the convention and constitutional provisions of the PDP, Akinjide noted that “this is part of the beauty of the PDP. All this balancing, rotation and zoning are all constructs instituted by the PDP in the political space. They were instituted for equity, fairness, justice and inclusion. Unlike the APC where people have complained of lopsidedness, where all the security apparatuses are concentrated in one zone, top government positions are concentrated in the North. Many people have said the Christians are being marginalized. PDP is known for balance and this is why the governors are making the argument. This is what the PDP is known for.
“The chairman has said that the day Atiku Abubakar is declared as elected, he would resign. He (Iyorchia Ayu) can’t resign now for two reasons. One, you don’t change captain of a football team or the coach in the middle of the game. He (Ayu) is the one that planned the game so allow him to complete it.
“Secondly, what significance does the chairman have right now that all the candidates have been chosen? The Presidential Campaign Council is headed by the governor of Akwa Ibom State and the Sokoto State governor is the Director-General of the council. All the G-5 Governors have been assigned roles in the campaign as Deputy-Directors-General. So, the question is, what is the role of the National Chairman that is so important for them now three months to the General Elections?”
She said that the G-5 Governors and members of the Integrity Group should wait till the end of the election, revealing that “this is it. If at the end of the election, and PDP wins and Atiku becomes the President-in-waiting and the party then reneges, then they have a case. The PDP has a convention of zoning six important offices among the six zones of the country.”
She said that Makinde and co are already campaigning for Atiku. “They are already doing so. They cannot do otherwise because all of them have candidates flying the flag of the party that they want to see succeed. They are already campaigning for the party. As long as you are campaigning that the people should vote for the PDP, you are already campaigning for Atiku Abubakar because it is the PDP that the people are going to vote for.
“If you make the mistake of saying vote for another party for the Presidency and vote for the PDP for other posts, it would backfire. This is because many voters who are illiterates know which ballot was for President and any other office. Anybody can say whatever they want but I know that the PDP is a deep rooted party and I can assure that 99.9 per cent of the party officials and members are campaigning in the polling unit, ‘vote PDP’. That’s what is going to happen on Election Day. In Oyo State when the governor flagged off his campaign in Ibadan, members told him that it is Atiku that they want.
“He is a listening and an intelligent man who heard what they said. The same thing happened in Ibarapa when he started his local government campaign. That also repeated itself in Ogbomosho too where he tacitly told party members to vote for the PDP. He has assured that he would not bite the hand that has feeds him and that he would not do anything anti-party.”
