2015: Jonathan woos PDP govs ahead of declaration

By Lawrence Olaoye.

Governors on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday were locked in a strategic meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Aso Villa in Abuja.

Although newsmen were barred from assessing the First Lady wing venue of the meeting, it was learnt that top on the agenda of the meeting was to iron out the controversies around endorsement of candidates by the governors who are serving out their terms on the platform of the party.

It was also learnt that the meeting deliberated on how to ensure safe landing for those outgoing governors who are bent on getting the party’s nomination for the PDP tickets in their respective Senatorial districts.

It was gathered that the inconclusive meeting between the PDP’s leadership and the governors last week Wednesday where they were given conditions for them to get automatic nominations prompted the parley ahead of Jonathan’s formal declaration for the Presidency any moment from now.

The PDP leadership had insisted that those governors eyeing the Senatorial tickets of their region must forget about nominating successor for there to be a fair playing ground for other members of the party, especially for those serving Senators they are planning to supplant.

This arrangement, according to a source in the party’s leadership who craved anonymity, did not go down well with the governors who are regarded as the field Marshall’s of the party at the state and local levels.

The meeting with the president, who is regarded as the supreme leader of the ruling party, the source stressed, was to deliberate on the impasse and possibly find a way of placating those serving Senators who are resisting their governors’ plot to take over from them.

Those in attendance at the meeting as at the time of filing this report include the governors of Kebbi, Kaduna, Gombe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Ondo, Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Cross River, Katsina, Abia, Niger, Taraba, Bayelsa.

Deputy governors of Kogi, Nasarawa were equally in attendance.

Indications emerged recently that there was a succession battle raging between PDP governors seeking automatic ticket to contest the senatorial slots in their various states against serving senators nursing the ambition of seeking re-election.

A meeting convened by the National Chairman of the party in Abuja last Wednesday had failed to resolve the vexed issues of automatic ticket and endorsement of candidates.