IBB is desperate — Jonathan campaign organisation

Former President Ibrahim Ba-bangida

Former military President Ibrahim Ba-bangida’s threat to quit the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the party’s refusal to abide by power rotation formula was a move by a drowning man “thrown into confusion and desperation at the prospects of impending political oblivion, Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization said yesterday.

Babangida had in a letter to the National Chairman of the PDP Dr. Okwesilieze Nwo-do Tuesday threatened to quit the party unless it enforces the controversial zoning arrangement which an FCT High Court declared as binding on the party.

Responding to the letter, the campaign group in a statement by its spokesman Sully Abu yesterday said, “having lost to Atiku in their so-called consensus arrangement, he (IBB) must have been thrown into confusion and desperation at the prospects of impending political oblivion. Clutching at the straw of zoning seems attractive to a drowning man. But regional jingoism is unsuited for a man who once held the highest office in the land.”

It said contrary to the claim by IBB that the Federal High Court in Abuja had given a ruling on zoning and rotation in the PDP that should be enforced by the chairman of the party, no such ruling exists.

It said when Atiku Abubakar emerged as the consensus aspirant of the NPLF, IBB and two other aspirants accepted the verdict and pledged to give full support to the aspiration of Atiku.

“Now, IBB is singing a totally new song.” Sully referred to a letter addressed to the National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, in which IBB restated the existence of rotation and zoning in the party’s constitution, and urged the National Chairman to enforce the principle,” Abu said.

He said that if IBB and his cohorts had taken their time to read and understand the judgment, they would have seen that the judge, while accepting that zoning and rotation exist in the PDP constitution declared that the provision was too vague to be enforceable.

Abu said that the Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization sympathises with IBB’s predicament and called on him to learn to live with his changing political fortune and not further diminish himself by playing games which only political novices should play. If he wants to go to another party, he does not need to blackmail anyone to do so.