A presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples
Democratic Party and Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has said the PDP
consensus was not a party affair but a communal responsibility.
Mohammed stated this while fielding questions on Channels
Television’s Sunday Politics.
Asked about Governor Aminu Tambuwal’s grievance over the
emergence of Mohammed and former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, as the PDP’s
consensus candidates, Mohammed said the responsibility of choosing a consensus
candidate was put on a Northern elder.
He said, “I am not easily given to this kind of situation
where I retort or I join issues with my colleagues that I have very high regard
and respect for. But certainly the issues of politicking and politics, behind
the scene discussions and permutations, and meetings being held before they
come out to the public; it takes a lot time and a lot of issues to be
discussed.
“Yes, we had discussed earlier on that this thing (choosing
a consensus candidate) was taking long and we’re almost getting to the point that
each aspirant will submit his form and the rest; the thing is not working as we
wanted, because what we did was to come together out of our free volition…and
we thought we would reduce rancour, close rank and give one of the elders, not
the PDP elders, one of the elders of the North; it is not a party affair. It is
not a party responsibility. It is a communal responsibility that we decided to
put on our elder who is well respected in the North, and we agreed that General
Babaginda is eminently qualified because he has no personal interest, he can
also do it for other parties. He’s a bi-partisan person, he’s a stateman.
“So we went to him and said he can choose between (among)
the four of us because we couldn’t really agree to leave it to anyone of us.”
Mohammed said the former Head of State, General Ibrahim
Babaginda (retd.), involved the Northern Elders Forum but not on partisan
basis.
He said the aspirants expected Babaginda to take a
unilateral decision, which they believed would be accepted by them all, but
Babaginda decided to involve the Ango Abdullahi-led NEF in the process.
He stated that a voting process was adopted to ensure the
credibility of the exercise.
Mohammed said, “On his (Ango Abdullahi’s) own part, he
reached out to other elders within the three geopolitical regions of the North
and, of course, they did some voting. We did not know this. I did not know the
people he involved. So, at the end of the day, he had to be working behind the
scene too, so that this thing would have credibility. This thing would have
acceptability.
“It is not a party issue. It is a community responsibility
given to him and he decided to use the elders to do it.”
Mohammed further said the step they took was a pre-primaries
effort made to reduce rancour and close rank, adding that, “To me, this
endorsement that Babangida and his group did is the most credible, is
voluntary, and we have accepted it in good faith.”
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