Rivers State
Governor, Rotimi Amaechi’s hope of picking the vice presidential ticket of the
opposition All Progressives Congress, APC , in the 2015 general elections has
been sealed by the zoning formula of the party.In the party’s
zoning arrangement, which Nigerian Pilot assessed, the South-South geopolitical
zone where Governor Amaechi comes from has been given the national chairmanship
of the APC, which effectively rules out the zone from any bigger elective political
office on the party’s platform.
Political analysts
say with the arrangement, the presidential and the vice presidential candidates
of the APC cannot come from the South-South zone, thereby putting paid to
Governor Amaechi’s alleged bid to become the running mate of whoever gets the
party’s presidential slot.
Before now, there
have been permutations that the Rivers governor may pair with Governor Rabiu
Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State as running mate in 2015 as compensation for his
many struggles and fights against the Goodluck Jonathan’s Presidency.
An insider in the
party said the Rivers governor had been promised the vice-presidential ticket
if he crossed over to the APC to be the face and arrowhead of the APC in the
South-South.
This, according to
the source, explained the ferocity the governor had been fighting the
Presidency. He is also believed to have injected massive funds into the party
in his efforts to give it a face in a zone where the party would have naturally
gone into oblivion.
“This zoning arrangement
effectively schemes him out of the vice presidential bracket. If you critically
look at the arrangement, you will discover that the North-West and the
South-West zones have more prominent positions. This is a sure indication that
the presidential and vice presidential tickets will be zoned to the two zones.
“The only thing
left for the Rivers governor is the senatorial ticket of Rivers East, which I
am sure the party will give him, but will he clinch the seat in Rivers under
APC?”
Governor Amaechi
has been in a running battle with the presidency over what many believe is his
2015 ambition to upstage the president.
To make matters
worse for the belligerent governor, his preferred candidate for the national
chairmanship of the party, Dr Sam Sam Jaja may not materialize after all, as
more formidable candidates have been lined up from
the zone to slog it
out with him.
With no vice
presidential slot and his preferred candidate for the national chairman ignored
by the party, the question is, has the governor reached his political end?
A member of the
party’s NEC who spoke on condition of anonymity told Nigerian Pilot that it
does not mean that Governor Amaechi has been left empty handed because “this is
party and not an individual affair. The party will still find something for him
either now or in the nearest future.”
APC Govs Forum
polarised, party elders in disarray
And with less than
24 hours to the national convention of the APC in Abuja, the party’s zoning
arrangement has polarised its key leaders.
At a caucus meeting
attended by 37 senior members of the party, the zoning arrangement, which was
made public, showed that the South-South will also get the offices of the
deputy national secretary and deputy national legal adviser.
The South-West is
allocated the national legal adviser, deputy national secretary and deputy
national legal adviser. The South-East gets national organising
secretary, national
auditor, deputy finance secretary and deputy women leader.
The North-Central
has national publicity secretary, national women leader, deputy treasurer and
deputy welfare secretary. The North-West will produce the welfare secretary,
deputy national chairman, national treasurer, deputy national organising
secretary and the North-East has national secretary, national youth leader and
deputy national auditor.
The leading
contenders for the APC national chairmanship are: Chief Tom Ikimi and Chief
John Odigie Oyegun both from Edo State, Dr. Sam Sam Jaja from Rivers State and
Mr. Timipre Sylva, former governor of Bayelsa State. Sylva is favoured for the
office.
The struggle for
the national chairmanship of the party, regarded as the plummiest job the party
has to offer, has polarised the party along two main blocs; the governors’ bloc
and the Bola Tinubu’s bloc.
It would be
recalled that the governors led by Governor Okorocha opposed the choice of
Tinubu on the party’s convention committee, which made Tinubu to storm out of
the party’s NEC and based on that victory, the governors are said to have been
emboldened to take over the party and dictate how the structure should be.
While the governors
are said to be backing Tom Ikimi, former Nigeria’s External Affairs Minister
and a henchman of the late Gen. Sani Abacha, the Tinubu group is favourably
disposed to the emergence of Oyegun, 75 years old and former Governor of Edo
state.
Source: Nigerian
Pilot