Except the unexpected happens, the cloud of uncertainty over the long-awaited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) consensus candidate of the North will continue this week.

Though the Northern Political Leadership Forum (NPLF) led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma has assured that the popular choice would be announced on Tuesday, feelers at the weekend confirmed that an end to the search is not yet in sight.

The four northern aspirants in the race include former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida, former Vice President and 2007 presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former National Security Adviser (NSA), General Aliyu Gusau, and governor of Kwara State, Dr Bukola Saraki.

Sunday Sun observed that close associates of the aspirants were all in high spirits when contacted even as they anxiously awaited the announcement of their candidate for the presidential race. Whereas supporters of IBB believe he would pick the single consensus slot because of his wealth of experience, those of Atiku told Sunday Sun that their principal remained the most qualified democrat of the lot. For Gusau and Saraki’s loyalists, the mood was the same as they flaunted experience in public service and generational paradigm shift respectively.

A top member of the PDP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Ciroma committee set up to produce a sellable candidate from the North that can challenge President Goodluck Jonathan was finding the consensus project a difficult task to accomplish. He revealed that the committee was hesitant to announce the preferred candidate because it was not sure what the other three aspirants that would lose out would do. The source said although one of the four aspirants was clearly in the lead, the committee was at a loss over the implication of his announcement.

He told Sunday Sun that the fear is that other aspirants may not accept the recommendations of the committee and may pursue their ambition on other platforms outside the PDP. Our source said that the Ciroma committee was working round the clock to calm frayed nerves before the announcement in order to ensure that the North does not go to the primaries as a divided house with President Jonathan. “If feelers from the North is anything to go by, the Ciroma committee is not likely to announce the long-awaited consensus candidate this week. With what is on ground, the choice of a consensus candidate from the four PDP aspirants would not be easy.

“None of the aspirants wants to step down for the other as each believes that he has some comparative advantages over the other. “The committee is careful not to be perceived to show bias for any particular candidate as that could be counter-productive. Part of the fear is that if it picks an aspirant in a haste, others might go to other parties or stay within the party and work against the interests of the North. “Why the committee is at a loss is that it is only a united North that could go to the PDP primaries and win President Jonathan, who obviously would enjoy some advantages as an incumbent President,” he said.

The committee has however slated a meeting with the four aspirants for Sunday night to brief the aspirants the modalities it used in arriving at its choice and also attempt to extract a firm commitment that those that missed the cut-off would support the selected aspirant. But another source said the NPLF was being careful to be sure any of the aspirants was not planted to divide the votes of the North. “You know in politics, anything is possible. The committee is made up of politicians with a lot of experience and they are looking at the possibility that a particular candidate or some of them could have been planted to divide the northern votes.

“Are you not surprised that in a critical period of the nation’s history that for the first time the North is not speaking with one voice. The way it is, nobody can guarantee that the Ciroma committee will come out with any consensus candidate this week as being expected,” the source said. However, Sunday Sun equally learnt that the consensus candidate would be announced on Tuesday as the committee had already settled for a popular candidate and would go public with it.
The source said: “The result of the findings of the committee as it concerns the consensus candidate would definitely be announced this week but who the candidate will be is still under wraps.”

But another source insisted that the committee had actually settled for Atiku.
The source claimed the camps of the other aspirants were already aware of the decision and that some of them were uneasy with the decision. A member of the committee confided in Sunday Sun that issues knocked out General Babangida from the committee’s contention.

According to the source, who is a key member of the IBB presidential campaign, the Ciroma committee was unsure of the purported wide acceptability of the former military leader, especially in the southern part of the country as well as his capacity to march Jonathan money for money in the struggle for the PDP ticket.
The committee was said to have been swayed by the reality that the former number two citizen does not only have the acceptance in the south but also had the money and the capacity to spend it being a product of the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua school of politics, where no amount of money was spared in securing political power.

The committee was of the opinion that 17 years out of power, Babangida may not possess the financial muscle to face a Jonathan’s financially empowered campaign camp. Atiku, on his part, left office less than four years ago.
The source added that the issue of zoning was also said to have favoured Atiku. Atiku is from Adamawa State in the North East geo-political zone of the country.

According to the committee, of all the three geo-political zones in the North, the North East had produced no leader for the country after the death of the nation’s first and only Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, while the North West where General Gusau hails from had produced four heads of state and the North Central, which is Babangida’s zone, had produced three heads of state.

The committee was also swayed by the democratic credentials of the former number two citizen, who has remained untainted by the blemish of military dictatorship, considered by the committee as a major setback to the duo of Babangida and Gusau.

Northern Christians divided over consensus candidate
From ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Kaduna

Since the introduction of Sharia, the Islamic legal code, in Zamfara State and other states in the North in 1999, it has increasingly become difficult to separate religion from politics.
Although religious leaders from both divides - Islam and Christianity - always outwardly claimed neutrality on political issues, a visit to their places of worship always proved the contrary, as they engaged in more political matters than politicians. And they hide under the guise of providing the “right direction” for their followers through the sermon they preach.

It was therefore not surprising when on November 10, the Mallam Adamu Ciroma group, searching for a consensus presidential material from the North, stormed the Catholic Social Centre, Kaduna, to confer with the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the 19 northern states and the federal capital territory (FCT).
But that singular visit has stirred fresh controversy within the fold of the Christian leaders, thus giving rise to the question: who is using CAN?

Before the visit
Barely 24 hours before the visit, the Archbishop Peter Jatau-led northern CAN had addressed a press conference on the state of the nation at the Catholic Social Centre, Kaduna, and insisted that the country was in dire need of a God-fearing leader.
During the question and answer session, journalists sought to know the position of the Christian leaders regarding the zoning controversy, to which Jatau responded: “It is not our business; it is the business of the politicians. We can get a leader without minding where he comes from. It is the character of the leader that matters, not where he comes from. Our appeal is to ensure that Nigerians vote their conscience.”
But Reverend Mathew Owojaiye, chairman of the Northern Christians Elders Forum (NOCEF) and one of the CAN leaders in the North, who sat on the podium with Jatau and other leaders like General Zamani Lekwot (rtd), argued that since the Muslims in the North have produced eight former Nigerian leaders, they ought to zone the position to the Christians in the North in 2011. His response elicited applause from the Christians at the meeting.

The visit
Since one of its leaders had raised the issue of zoning the presidency to northern Christians barely two days before the visit, one expected that it would have been raised, especially when those directly accused of shortchanging the northern Christians were the ones visiting.
Even though Ciroma, who led the group, and the Bauchi State CAN chairman, Bishop Musa Tula, insisted that the issue of zoning was never discussed, feelers from the meeting indicated that both men were being economical with the truth.

After the two-hour meeting, which was held behind closed doors at the Catholic Social Centre, Ciroma and Tula were evasive on the details of what transpired, as both of them insisted that the meeting was called to ask for prayers and to forge a better understanding between the two groups.
However, Sunday Sun gathered authoritatively that CAN told the Ciroma-led committee that it should treat accord Christians in the North all their rights and privileges the same way it was done under the late Premier of Northern Region and Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello.

The only clue Ciroma gave that the meeting went beyond the issue of prayer was that he told reporters that “sometimes we say something which may not be pleasant but may be the truth but the end result is greater understanding, which is the purpose of our visit.”
Pressed further to comment on what transpired at the meeting, especially regarding their cry for a northern Christian President, Tula said: “We are not politicians but spiritual leaders. So that is a matter left for the politicians.”
Sunday Sun further gathered from sources close to the meeting that the Ciroma group was asked why it was limiting its search to only aspirants within the PDP.
“They told us that they were doing that because they are members of the PDP, and we told them we are not politicians. We also told them that they have completely derailed from Sardauna’s legacies, by alienating the northern Christians from their activities…We told them that in the South, the Yoruba don’t discriminate on the basis of religion, and that they should try to imbibe such attitude.

“Finally, we told them that we don’t know who will emerge as the next President in 2011, but we know those who will not be President. We also advised them to consider all our sons and daughters who have indicated interest in the Presidency, even if they are not of the PDP,” one of the sources, who participated in the deliberation, volunteered.
Curiously, one Pastor Habu Aminci, who is relatively unknown in the CAN circle, and who never spoke to any reporter at the venue of the meeting, was later heard on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) saying that the Northern CAN would support any three of the aspirants, except one it considers an “anti-democrat.”

Kaduna CAN vs Northern CAN
Sunday Sun further gathered that although CAN in the northern states did not wholly subscribe to the views expressed by Aminci, it did nothing concrete to put the issues in perspective, thus forcing the Kaduna State chapter of CAN to take up the challenge.
By Saturday, November 13, the Kaduna CAN Secretary, Rev Joseph Hayab, issued a press statement saying it had no business with zoning, and as such Aminci could not have been speaking for it.
“Our attention has been drawn to a certain interview by a Christian clergy, Pastor Aminci, purportedly on behalf of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The said interview emanated from a meeting with prominent Northern Nigerian politicians, in respect of the direction of Nigeria’s presidency in the 2011 elections.
“The interviewee was said to have stated that Christian community in the northern region has resolved to stand on the side of pro-zoning, by ensuring that Christians in the region vote on the side of a northern aspirant whether in the PDP’s presidential primaries and the general election as well.

“The clergy went further that CAN has set up sub-committees at local levels to ensure that a northern presidency becomes a reality and feasible against the fact that the immense political commitment and concession, the region has conceded to the South has been denigrated by the intention of Present Goodluck Jonathan to run.
“It is on this premise that CAN has found it imperative and of urgent need to put the record straight. The Christian Association of Nigeria has no business with such partisanship politics, and has not in any way taken such a stand…
“By this, CAN hereby dissociates itself from the said stand purportedly taken on its behalf. We have never and will not in any case be partisan on issues related to politics. Rather we will continue to maintain our neutrality being apolitical but religious organization conscious of national development, cohesion, integration and peaceful coexistence of our dear country,” the statement further said.

Northern CAN reacts
By last Monday, following Hayab’s reaction, which was widely reported on Sunday, there was another report indicating that the Presidency may have forced the Kaduna CAN to disown Pastor Aminci, a situation that now forced Northern CAN to come clean on the real status of Aminci.
Secretary of Northern CAN, Elder Saidu Dogo, at a press conference in Kaduna said that there was no crack within its fold over the issue of consensus candidate.
Dogo noted that the meeting of the association with the Ciroma-led committee never discussed the issue of zoning or consensus, saying that the association made it clear to the Ciroma group that as religious leaders they do not want to be dragged into the politics of any party.

He also said that Aminci was not an official of CAN and does not have the power to speak on its behalf.
“We wish to state that Pastor Aminci, which some national dailies were quoting to have spoken on behalf of CAN in the North, actually came with the Ciroma entourage and is not an official or the chairman of CAN in Bauchi state or any other state for that matter.
“The chairman of CAN in Bauchi is Bishop Musa Tula, who represented the Northern CAN Chairman, Archbishop Peter Jatau, during the meeting with the Ciroma committee. Aminci is not an official of CAN anywhere and therefore has no locus standi to speak for Christians in the North.
“Those making any issue out of the interview he granted to the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were doing it mainly for mischief and for their selfish political interest. Our position as religious leaders is to remain neutral and continue to pray for the best leadership for this country.
“We wish to state in very clear terms that there is no crack in CAN and will resist any attempt to be dragged into issues that are purely the affairs of politicians.

“During our meeting with the Ciroma committee, we never said anything on zoning. What we told Ciroma and his committee members was that as religious leaders, we would continue to pray for the best leadership for this country,” Dogo added.

Who is Aminci?
Now that the Northern CAN, which he purportedly represented in his interview with BBC, has disowned him, Aminci will have to come up with his own story so that Nigerians would know who among the desperate PDP presidential aspirants is using CAN.
Efforts to locate Aminci proved abortive at the time of filing this report. But Sunday Sun has it on a good authority that he had facilitated one of the meetings between northern states CAN and one of the PDP presidential hopefuls.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2010/nov/21/national-21-11-2010-001.htm

Wish I could lay my hands on dat traitor "Pastor Aminci"