PRESIDENTIAL campaign banners and posters of politicians from the northern part of Nigeria flooded the Eagle Square, venue of the national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on October 30.
The office of national chairman of the PDP was zoned to the North and it is widely believed that, as a result of the development, the presidential ticket of the party would go to the South in the 2023 general elections.
Going by an informal zoning arrangement that has been in force in the PDP since 1999, the zone where the national chairman comes from hardly produces the presidential candidate.
A former Senate President Iyorchia Ayu, from Benue State in Nigeria’s North Central region, has been selected as the consensus candidate for the position of national chairman and it is expected that he will be officially sworn in at the convention.
PDP stakeholders from the South pushed for the zoning of the office of national chairman to the North in the expectation that it would ensure the emergence of a southern presidential candidate in 2023.
However, despite expectations that the zoning of the office of national chairman to the North would pave the way for the South to produce the presidential candidate in 2023, presidential election campaign posters of politicians from the North occupied strategic positions at different parts of the Eagle Square, the venue of the convention.
The northern politicians whose posters and banners were displayed by their teeming supporters at the Eagle Square include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Bauchi State Governor Bala Muhammed, former Senate President Bukola Saraki, former Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo and a former Governor of Kano State Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Bauchi Governor Muhammed’s supporters appeared to be the largest and most vocal contingent at the convention ground.
The Bauchi governor’s supporters marched around the Eagle Square with his posters, singing his praises, dancing and making merry.
A committee chaired by the Bauchi governor, which was set up to review the performance of the PDP in the 2019 general election, had recommended that the presidential ticket should be thrown open for aspirants from all the six geo-political zones in 2023.
The PDP had yet to zone its presidential ticket for 2023 but influential northern politicians want the party to jettison the longstanding North/South zoning arrangement.
Already, the Northern Governors Forum, comprising state governors from the northern states, including those elected on the platform of the PDP, has opposed the demand by the Southern Governors Forum that the southern part of the country should produce the president in 2023.
Also, former Senate President Saraki, who is believed to be nursing an ambition to run for president, recently declared that the fact that the PDP had zoned the position of national chairman to the North did not prevent any qualified aspirant from any other zone from contesting the presidency in 2023.