By Uche Mbah
Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, has alleged that former President Olusegun Obasanjo frustrated PDP Presidential frontrunners to pave way for Umaru Yar’Adua’s emergence as the Party’s ’s Presidential candidate.
Critics believe that Obasanjo unilaterally installed Yar’Adua as his successor in 2007.
Yar’Adua was later to die in office, and his Vice, Goodluck Jonathan became President.
Nnamani, in his recently released book, ‘Standing Strong: Legislative Reforms, Third Term and Other Issues of the 5th Senate’, told how former governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili was hounded out at the last minute by Obasanjo, allegedly, using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Not only Odili, but other serious contenders who refused to willingly withdraw from the race were either frustrated out, or forced to jettison their ambition.
According to him, Odili was “the most prepared of the lot for the ticket. But as the election approached, there was a “skeleton in his cupboard, about the EFCC and some documents”. Allegedly, because he lost the third term bid, he wanted still to be President by proxy. Hence he could not tolerate a strong willed candidate like, for example, Ahmed Makarfi. He stood against Makarfi even though he- Makarfi – was the runaway favorite of Northern Governors.
“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”, he wrote.
“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 Mike 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.”
