Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is said to have returned to the trenches within the fold of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) following the outcome of the governorship primaries of the party in Anambra State.
Obasanjo had recently attempted to broker a truce between the PDP and the aggrieved governors of the party under the aegis of G5 in Abuja.
Though the meeting lasted for a week, nothing concrete came out of it at the end of the day.
Sources however told Sunday Tribune that Obasanjo was motivated into taking up the peacemaker role because of his belief that his candidate would be allowed to emerge as gubernatorial candidate in Anambra.
A source in the know said that Obasanjo is a calculating man and that his involvement in the peace process was to facilitate Andy Uba’s emergence as gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Anambra state.
The source said that President Goodluck Jonathan equally got the message from Obasanjo and that he actually considered the Andy Uba choice but that analysis of the political situation in Anambra indicated that the PDP would easily lose the election should it field Uba.
“The President actually considered the choice of Obasanjo’s candidate for Anambra in view of the role played by the former President in seeking peace with the governors but he was confronted with facts and figures which confirmed that the PDP would lose the election if it fields Uba,” a source said.
The source also stated that the PDP then resolved to field a neutral candidate but with the plan to allow Uba contest the election in a free and fair primaries.
“I can tell you that if Uba had emerged a candidate from a free and fair primaries, the president would not have objected to it. Somehow, Uba got wind of the plan by the PDP not to field him and he organised a parallel primaries,” another source said.
Following the rejection of Uba, it was learnt that Obasanjo had decided to return to the trenches within the party once again.
“He is already aggrieved that his candidate in the National Working Committee (NWC), Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has been sidelined, then coupled with the rejection of Uba, he feels that he has an ax to grind with the party and the president,” the source stated.
