By Imam Imam, 10.08.2010
Unforeseen complications have arisen over the much-hyped move by the four Northern presidential aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic to pick a consensus candidate to contest for the party’s ticket, THISDAY can authoritatively report.

The four northern aspirants are former military head of state General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen Aliyu Muhammed Gusau (rtd), and Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State.

Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, widely believed to be the brains and architect of the consensus candidacy plot and is supposed to be one of the ‘17 wise men’ expected to decide on the candidate, has broken ranks by deciding to contest the presidential primaries of the PDP.

Ayu, sources confirmed, will on Wednesday next week declare his intention to contest next year's presidential polls, but will require a waiver from the party’s National Executive Committee to run.

The former senate president left the PDP in 2006 along with Atiku and only returned about a year ago. He is therefore ineligible to seek elective office on the party’s platform.

However, Ayu is said to have appealed to some of the ‘wise men’ saddled with the responsibility of picking a consensus candidate to support his candidacy, but their response could not be verified at the time of filing this report.

Sources informed this newspaper yesterday that the failure by the 17 men to agree on the modalities for selecting the consensus candidate, as well as the seeming inability to compel the candidates to slow down their campaign activities pending the conclusion of the committee’s work, is making it difficult to reach an agreement on who should represent the North.

Before the turn of events yesterday, some members of the committee had sought to include some emirs and other opinion leaders in the North, but the effort was not successful following a plea by the emirs that they did not want to be dragged into matters that are purely political.

Phone calls to some members of the committee for clarification were not answered yesterday, but a source close to Ayu confirmed that the Benue-born politician had concluded arrangements to declare his candidacy next week.

"We have already received copies of his manifesto and declaration speech from the presidential advisory council he earlier set up. We are waiting for next week to formally join the race," the source who declined to be named said.
Until now, all four aspirants had publicly committed themselves to abide by any decision reached by the committee, but with Ayu’s decision to run, they may have to go back to the drawing board.

However, another source close to the committee acknowledged that other members have been aware of Ayu’s ambition for a while, and that his decision to contest for the PDP ticket will not stop them from concluding their work.
“An announcement on the consensus candidate will be made next week,” he assured.“The committee does not believe that Ayu’s decision will stall the search for a consensus candidate.”

Another plus 4 GEJ. D north will continue in confusion till d date of d primaries. They are bound 2 fail.