APC Northern Caucus Seeks Soft Landing for Kwankwaso • How Tambuwal was prevailed upon to drop out of presidential race •DSS confirms arrest of suspected cloners of PVCs in APC’s Lagos office By Olawale Olaleye in Lagos and Yemi Akinsuyi in Abuja With the presidential primary of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) due in a couple of weeks, the leadership of the party has begun to put finishing touches to an arrangement that would lead to a hitch-free exercise. Although the Dr. Kayode Fayemi-led Convention Planning Committee is yet to decide on the venue of the exercise, the Northern Caucus of the party has been meeting to initiate moves to prevail on the Governor of Kano State, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, to stand down his presidential bid. Should Kwankwaso accede to their request, this would leave the stage for former military Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, who realistically is the presumptive presidential candidate of the party, and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. Expected to swing into action soon, it was Northern Caucus, THISDAY gathered, that spoke to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, who recently stepped down his bid for the presidency, ostensibly in the larger interest of the party. Members of the caucus, who met recently in Abuja, include Governor Ibrahim Wamakko of Sokoto State; Governor Abdul-Aziz Yari of Zamfara State; Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno; former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu; former Gombe State Governor, Senator Danjuma Goje; and former Kwara State Governor, Senator Bukola Saraki. The caucus allegedly met with Tambuwal at Saraki’s guest house in Maitama, Abuja. The APC, THISDAY gathered, has been worried about the likely divisions a hard-fought presidential primary could throw up and is making efforts to contain this, even though it is not certain that it can completely eliminate tensions that could arise in the aftermath of the presidential primary. Also, the northern caucus is of the view that the younger aspirants in the presidential contest should set aside their ambitions for the more experienced aspirants who with their wealth of experience, popularity and name recognition, stand a better chance of beating President Goodluck Jonathan at the polls. In this regard, the caucus has met and would probably meet again this week to finalise on a strategy to find a soft landing for Kwankwaso that would encourage him to drop out of the presidential contest. The goal is for the caucus to meet with Kwankwaso and make him see the need to sacrifice his presidential bid in the interest of the party and ultimately pave the way for a saner contest at the primary. Whilst a majority of the caucus is convinced that Kwankwaso might actually see reason, there are still concerns that he might not be easy to persuade to drop out of the presidential race because he is serious about his chances and might see the move by the party as tampering with his rights to contest for the highest office in the land. In a similar fashion, the caucus had told Tambuwal that since age was on his side, he should see the need to let go. But before he was talked out of the presidential race, the caucus was said to have assured him that it had secured the consent of Wamakko to create a level playing field for everyone in the Sokoto governorship contest. It was Tinubu who allegedly insisted that since Tambuwal had obtained the presidential nomination and expression of interest forms, he should be allowed to run the whole course, in order to have it on the record that he also made sacrifices for the party at such a critical time. It was against this backdrop that Tambuwal allegedly stood down his presidential bid and resolved to slug it out with other governorship aspirants in Sokoto State. Thus, if the caucus succeeds in convincing Kwankwaso to join Tambuwal, it would automatically leave the stage for a fierce contest between Buhari and Atiku, albeit with the publisher of the Leadership Newspapers, Sam Nda-Isaiah, featuring on the fringes. If after the primary election, Buhari makes it through as the APC candidate, the party leadership is already said to be thinking of Buhari’s likely running mate. Frontrunners for the post include Babatunde Fahsola (SAN) of Lagos State and Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State. Amaechi, whom the party leadership argued has only the religious advantage over his more popular Lagos State counterpart, could help garner votes both in the South-south and to a lesser extent, the South-east zone, arguing that it would be easier to convince the South-south people on the need to change a non-performing president with a tested vice-president with a good track record. Curiously, one problem the party leadership is said to have with the Buhari/Amaechi ticket is Tinubu, who they believe is not comfortable with the Rivers State governor. Sources hinted that since Amaechi confronted Tinubu at a meeting, condemning the idea of a Muslim/Muslim ticket, things have ceased to be smooth between them. They therefore believe that Tinubu might oppose the idea. Besides the Tinubu factor, Fashola boasts better national and international credentials and as a running mate stands a much better chance of garnering the South-west vote and splitting the Jonathan-Sambo vote in the entire South-south and South-east. However, as the convention committee prepares the stage for the presidential primary, the choice of venue, which has remained in contention, is to decide whether to hold it in Lagos or Edo State. The reason the Eagle Square in Abuja has been taken out of consideration stems from the fact that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will be holding its convention on the same day and has allocated the space to itself. Edo, the committee thought, would have been the ideal venue given the fact that it is the zone of the incumbent president. An Edo venue, the committee reckons, would be symbolic politically, but there are concerns that the state does not have the capacity to host over 10,000 people expected to participate at the convention. This therefore leaves the committee with the option of Lagos, which it believes comes with other advantages – security and the media. With most of the nation’s major media outlets headquartered in Lagos, the committee is of the view that Lagos would be its best bet. Even then, the decision as to which venue it would settle for, a committee source said, is still subject to ratification by a larger committee, which is yet to meet and endorse the choice of venue. But the source said plans are in top gear ahead of the convention since time is no longer on APC’s side. Meanwhile, the Department of State Security (DSS) has confirmed the arrest of suspected cloners who were alleged to have specialised in the cloning of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) voters’ cards with the intention of hacking into the INEC data base, corrupting it and replacing them with their own data. The suspects were arrested in the same office, which APC acknowledged housed its data processing centre in Lagos. The department’s spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, in a statement on Sunday, said some of the suspects were arrested and caught with a server, three hard drives, and three jute bags (known in local parlance as Ghana-must-go bags) of hard copy documents. The statement reads: “A petition was received by the service about some activities at No. 10 Bola Ajibola Street, Off Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos. The petition alleged that those behind the activities were cloning INEC permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) with the intention of hacking into INEC’s data base, corrupting it, and replacing them with their own data. “Based on this information, the service placed the building under surveillance and having been convinced that some unwholesome activities were going on in the building, it undertook a raid of the premises. “In the process, some persons were arrested while a server, three hard drives and three Ghana-must-go bags of hard copy documents were recovered and taken away for further investigation. “It must be noted that the said location has no signpost indicating whether it was a private or government office.” ThisDay
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 07:11:56 +0000
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