Sunday, 15 August 2010 00:00 From Alifa Daniel, Asst Political Editor, Abuja News - National   .User Rating: / 0
Guardian

LESS than 90 days to the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and less than five months to the presidential election, the drumbeats of political warfare are resonating across the country, with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar holding a retreat with seven Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) in Abuja.
The former Vice President had, shortly after the 2007 elections, said he spent not less than N500 million on legal pursuits.
In the same vein, following the tacit approval given to President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the election, his strategists have started a round of meetings to gain lost grounds, which led to many political foes working against an outright endorsement from the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PDP.
There is no firm word from the camp of former military leader, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, on declaration date, though many suspect that he is planning a surprise “in his usual way.”
His spokesman, Kazeem Afegbua, could not be reached yesterday to confirm speculations that his birthday (August 17), or August 27, the date he stepped aside from power 17 years ago will be the date of his formal declaration.
Some of Jonathan’s men believe that what he got from the NEC was not good enough in view of the power at his disposal “and the ignoble role played by some governors, who see themselves as candidate materials.” But others think that in the prevailing circumstances, the President won a major victory in NEC.
One source reiterated that “there would be a lot of political engineering and clipping of wings,” without giving exact details of what would happen.
Details of the meeting between Atiku and his top legal minds were not clear even as his aides, especially Malam Garba Shehu, sought to play it down. The Guardian learnt it was the second of such meetings between the embattled politician and the legal team.
Shehu merely chose to state on telephone that Atiku had a meeting with his lawyers and said he did not have details. Atiku is expected to make a formal declaration today at 1.00 pm at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel.
But it was learnt that the move by the former Vice President was intended to see if he could be stopped by any of the laws in the country.  “They went through the 1999 constitution, the PDP Constitution, the Electoral Act and every other thing legal having to do with the forthcoming elections, and I suspect that the result of the last Retreat with the Senior Advocates led to his decision to throw in his hat into the presidential race,” a source said at the weekend.