Presidential-elect Bola Tinubu
Eko Hot Blog reports that the camps of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, and the five aggrieved governors of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are set to meet to finalise the deal on the 2023 presidency.
The PDP governors are Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, Samuel Ortom of Benue, and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu.
The state chief executives have refused to back their party’s presidential candidate, saying the national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, must resign on the grounds that he cannot hail from the same region (north) as the presidential candidate.
However, Ayu has refused to resign and the governors have also failed to compromise their positions.
Hence, the PDP governors, known as G5 governors or the “Integrity Group”, have been looking elsewhere to back a presidential candidate.
The PDP G5 governors
Although the PDP bigwigs were torn between choosing Tinubu and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Eko Hot Blog gathered that the APC presidential candidate is favoured because his party has the wider spread.
According to Daily Trust, a reliable source close to the former Lagos governor, said barring any last-minute change, the PDP governors and the Tinubu camp will meet in one of the European countries this week. Eko Hot Blog gathered that the governors are already in London, United Kingdom.
The source, who refused to give the exact date of the meeting, however, said it is being conveyed to firm up their deal on the 2023 presidency with the governors.
“The support by G5 for Tinubu is going to be a game changer, akin to the declaration of the G6 for the APC in 2014,” they said.
“We are meeting with the group this week in Europe to firm up the arrangement. They are first-class nationalists who believe in the Nigeria project and we shall work together for the good of the nation.”
Efforts to get the reaction of the aggrieved governors yielded no results as the spokesperson for Wike, Kelvin Ebiri and Makinde’s Taiwo Adisa did not pick up their calls at the time of filing this report.
But Wike had on Thursday said he would disclose his preferred presidential candidate in January 2023.
The Rivers governor said he will not only tell his people who to vote for but will campaign for his choice of the presidential candidate throughout the country.
“Nothing will happen,” he said. “So, all of you who have been in suspense, who have been saying all kinds of things, abusing me; wait, January is here.”
In October, the Makinde, while speaking through his deputy, Bayo Lawal, endorsed the candidature of Tinubu.
Similarly, the Benue governor had in November said he would not support Atiku’s presidential bid.
Meanwhile, the Atiku campaign has shrugged off the PDP governors’ crusade to undermine its candidate.
A spokesperson for the campaign council of Atiku, Senator Dino Melaye, told Daily Trust that the alliance won’t affect the victory of the PDP presidential candidate in 2023.
“We are waiting for his announcement. That’s all,” he said, but when asked whether the alignment will affect Atiku’s chances, he added, “Not at all. Nigerians are already queueing behind Atiku. By God’s grace, he is the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
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