By Aminu Kutama
By Aminu Kutama
Barring any last minute change, former Vice President and presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will be in Kano on Sunday, to visit Senator Ibrahim Shekarau.
The meeting, which will set the tone for a series of events that will precede Shekarau’s eventual public defection to the Peoples Democratic Party some time next week, will be held for Atiku to publicly seek for the former Kano state governor to join his campaign team and lead the effort to garner significant support from the Northwestern part of the country.
Sahelian Times had earlier reported how Shekarau rejected initial overtures from Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, but we have reliably gathered from sources close to the former vice president that a deal has been reached with the senator, who already considers himself a member of the PDP.
“The deal with Shekarau has been agreed, and Waziri will visit him at his Kano residence on Sunday to publicly request his support for his presidential aspiration. You see, Malam as a former presidential candidate himself is a huge figure in Kano politics, and that is why our candidate has decided to come down to Kano and seek for his support regardless of the already existing agreement that they have,” he said.
This paper has also gathered that besides a number of federal appointments that were promised to him, the senator might not retain his senatorial candidacy in the PDP, as details around that issue are still sketchy.
There is also an existing dispute as to who is the party’s candidate in Shekarau’s Kano Central zone between Alhaji Danburam Abubakar Nuhu and Hajiya Laila Buhari, whom are respectively being backed by the two warring factions of the party in Kano.
Senator Ibrahim Shekarau who has fell out with the presidential candidate of the NNPP, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has accused the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) of refusing to implement the terms of an agreement it reached with his group before his defection to the party.
However, the trio of the gubernatorial candidate of the NNPP in Kano, Abba Kabir Yusuf and his deputy, Comrade Aminu Abdulsalam, and Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila, who represented Kwankwaso’s side during negotiations with Shekarau’s faction, accused the former governor of frustrating his supporters’ stay in the party by foot dragging the negotiations after presenting unrealistic demands.
Addressing a meeting of the party’s stakeholders in Kano, the NNPP gubernatorial candidate accused Shekarau of deliberately denying him audience at different times in Kano and Abuja.
“If not that Malam went public accusing me of frustrating his stay in the NNPP, you wouldn’t have heard this from me. I headed a committee constituted by both Kwankwaso and Shekarau to harmonize his demands and our provisions, which we did and presented a report on. But he delayed the implementation of the report by refusing to sit with us and conclude on the actionable terms in the report.”
“This is why many of his supporters lost out on the party’s tickets, because he kept delaying us and we had to beat INEC’s deadline for submission of candidates”, Yusuf added.
It is believed that the conflict between Atiku and Governor Nyesom Wike, and the defection of people like Shekarau has held back Atiku from constituting his campaign council, as he wants to unite the party and add strength to his weak areas towards the general election.
