In its determined bid to by any means stop Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, from having as much as a whiff of the Kebbi state governorship seat in the fresh election ordered by the Supreme Court, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has decided to woo CPC stalwart and former governor of the state under the canopy of All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Adamu Aliero, with an offer of the vice president’s seat in 2015.
Typical of his character which tilts more toward dishonesty than decency and rectitude, Aliero, who made good as one-time customs officer, was said to have promptly risen to the bait. That is why of late he is often pinned down in strategic meetings in Kebbi, Abuja and Sokoto where final touches are being put to the atrocious deal. Together with Dahiru Mangal, billionaire businessman and close friend of the Yar’Adua family, he recently met in Sokoto with governor Magatakarda Wamakko. And most likely, the final meeting will hold in Kebbi March 22. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Aliero and Saidu Dakingari, whose election was upturned, will be at the meeting.
Also a devoted champion of the horrible opportunism which occupies ample space and tarnishes the image of Nigeria’s party politics, Aliero had in the past made a Machiavellian switch from ANPP to PDP, won a seat to the senate and, with the help of then first lady Turai Yar’Adua, was subsequently pulled away from the National Assembly and compensated with the juicy portfolio of minister of Federal Capital Territory, presumably for his outstanding role as cheerleader of the Yar’Adua presidency.
And when he sensed trouble in PDP after President Yar’Adua’s death, Aliero could not muster enough guts to weather the storm. He dashed to the camp of CPC where he deployed his vast wealth and influence to lay the foundation for the massive grassroots membership the party currently commands in the state. Though he contested and lost a senate seat in the April 2011 general elections, Aliero seemed unperturbed as he continued to play a key role in the efforts to strengthen the party.
Evidently, reliable sources say, this new move by the ruling party to award the position of next vice president to him is a strategy to force him to work against his party and ensure victory for PDP’s Dakingari whose attempt to finish a second term as governor appeared to have hit the rocks with the annulment of his election. To put a final nail to the coffin of his party and contrive a bogus sweep of the votes for PDP, Aliero would withdraw moral and financial support for his party and pointedly deny its candidate Gari Mallam funds to mobilise his supporters. At the Sokoto meeting which Wamakko led, Mangal, who had earlier promised to assist CPC with N1billion to prosecute the election which Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, scheduled for March 31 was pressurised to back off.
Meanwhile back in Kebbi state, Aliero continues to perfect his contemptible scheme of fooling CPC supporters. Working hard underground and recording breakthroughs in his persuasion of notable party adherents to transfer allegiance to the so-called largest party in Africa, he felt no pang of conscience appearing not long ago at CPC rallies in Birnin-Kebbi and Argungu. At the rallies Aliero addressed crowds that have never been witnessed in the history of the state. Pretending to be a sincere leader, he told them he would be attending meetings in Abuja. But the innocent multitude did not know that the agenda of the meetings had to do with ditching them.
For a man who residents of Abuja would only remember as the minister who was relentless in his wicked hunt for harmless street traders and immoderately wasteful with the construction of unnecessary speed bumps at highway junctions, this indeed is harvest time. Alongside , Kabiru Tanimu, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, governorship candidate in the 2011 election who now opted to support PDP instead of the CPC candidate because of lingering bitterness for being denied the control of CPC in the state, Aliero would have a much easier job delivering his state to his benefactors.
This new development implies that even PDP has settled for Goodluck Jonathan’s continuation beyond 2015 despite denial of the plot by the presidency. A group of northerners within the week urged Jonathan to avoid attempts to elongate his tenure. But it appears it is the 2015 VP slot that the party thinks the North will get.
Equally, this deal with Aliero implies that Jonathan does not want to continue with Namadi Sambo as the Vice President.Some of Sambo’s aides however recently dismissed any hint of disaffection between the incumbent VP and Jonathan.”They get on well and trust themselves,none of them hides anything from the other,” the presidency source said.But new revelations from Abuja political circles indicate new thinking within the PDP.Or is PDP just deceiving Aliero in order to win the gubernatorial election in the state ?
