Ken Nnamani, former senate president, has narrated how
former President Olusegun Obasanjo “hounded” frontrunners on the platform of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to “anoint” Umaru Yar’Adua as the party’s
presidential candidate.
Yar’Adua succeeded Obasanjo as the president of Nigeria in
2007, extending the reign of the then ruling party at the helm of the country’s
affairs.
Yar’Adua later died while in office, and Goodluck Jonathan
moved up the hierarchy as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
In his newly-released book, ‘Standing Strong: Legislative Reforms, Third Term and Other Issues of the 5th Senate’, Nnamani narrated how “all serious contenders” vying for PDP presidential ticket in the 2007 elections were “hounded out of the way or convinced to withdraw”.
He said Peter Odili, former governor of Rivers state, was
“the most prepared of the lot for the ticket”, but suddenly there was a
“skeleton in his cupboard, about the EFCC and some documents”.
The former president of the senate, who led the red chamber
from April 2005 to May 2007, also recounted how Obasanjo rejected Ahmed
Makarfi, former governor of Kaduna state, because he “was too intelligent to be
controlled”.
“But of those who ran for the [PDP presidential] ticket,
Governors Ahmed Markarfi of Kaduna State and Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa were
the more prominent. Governor Markarfi is a brilliant accountant, and North West
State of Kaduna had the reputation of being a gentleman and was the candidate
of many of his brother governors in the PDP for the presidential ticket,” he
wrote.
“In an interview
granted the Interview Magazine in 2017, Chief Ayo Fayose, who was the Governor
of Ekiti state during the third term period. Revealed that Markarfi was the
preferred candidate of a committee set up by the president to find a suitable
flagbearer for the party. Fayose, who was chairman of that presidential
committee, claimed that Obasanjo rejected the choice of Markarfi because he
felt the governor was too intelligent to be controlled.
“In the end, the list of contenders tapered out to 12
candidates who ran for the party’s ticket. They included Governor Yar’Adua.
Chief Rochas Okorocha, General Aliyu Gusau (Rtd), Professor Jerry Gana, General
Buba Marwa (Rtd), Navy Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (Rtd), Late Admiral Mile Akhigbe
(Rtd), Chief Albert Horsfall, Mrs Sarah Jubril, Chief Ralph Uwechue, Andreas
Sawa and General Mamman Kontagora (Rtd). None of those generally regarded as
front liners for the ticket was on the card. After the vote, Yar’Adua was
declared the winner with 3,024 votes out of a total of 4,101 voles. In the end,
the Presidency’s will was done, as all those who stood a chance had been either
silenced or run out of the party.
“As I watched the proceedings of the PDP presidential
primaries for the 2007 elections in Eagle Square that day, the evidence of an
inverted and corrupted democracy was all too clear. The party members – the
contestants and the delegates – making their way to the arena to cast their
votes were just following the motions to give the impression of democracy in
action. It was clear to anyone who had been following the events of recent
weeks that the whole process at the Eagle Square that day was a charade because
the outcome of the election had been predetermined. All serious contenders for
that election had either been hounded out of the way or ‘convinced to withdraw.
Governor Yar’Adua was the anointed of President Obasanjo.
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