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As Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate and former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, moves to get the cooperation and buy-in of other aspirants who contested against him, facts have emerged as to why Bauchi State governor, Alhaji Bala Mohammed, did not to step down from the race on the primary ground.
This is coming as sources revealed that northern elements, who felt offended by Governor Mohammed’s refusal to step down have vowed to deal with him in politics.
Pressure had mounted on all northern presidential aspirants to step down for Atiku, in order to have a formidable and unified front against Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, who eventually came second in the primary with 237 votes, behind the former Vice President, who garnered 372 votes.
It was gathered that when approached to step down for Atiku on the primary venue, Mohammed refused, while Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, not only agreed to withdraw from the race, but also announced that his supporters would vote for Atiku.
Competent sources told Daily Sun that Mohammed refused to withdraw from the race not because of his dislike for Atiku, but owing to nationalistic sentiment and unity of the PDP. The governor had also promised that he would work and support whoever won the ticket of PDP.
It was gathered that Mohammed saw the demand for his withdrawal as capable of further dividing the country into North and South, since the pressure was coming from a section of the country, the north, against a southern aspirant.
Mohammed, it was learnt, disliked the possibility of PDP going into the election divided, a development he feared would give the All Progressives Congress (APC) an edge in the presidential race.
A source said that Governor Wike’s position that the North ganged up against him and the South has vindicated Mohammed’s position that asking some northern aspirants to withdraw for Atiku was going to cause more damage to the PDP and the country, in the quest for unity.
It was gathered that the Bauchi governor also saw the demand for his withdrawal at the 11th hours as offending everything he had stood for, “as a nationalist and constitutionalist.”
Daily Sun gathered that Mohammed also reckoned that it would be wrong for him to take a decision as weighty as stepping down on the primary ground, believing that this would amount to “disrespecting members of one’s team and indeed betraying them, to mount the podium, as Tambuwal did, to announce stepping down, without any discussion with key stakeholders of one’s team.”
Also, it was learnt that Mohammed said the timing for stepping down was wrong and that if there was need to do so it would have been for either Bukola Saraki, Tambuwal or Hayatu-Deen, who earlier subjected themselves to the process of selecting a consensus aspirant for the North.
The Bauchi State governor also believed that since each aspirant in the presidential race had an agenda and vision driving him, there ought to have been a wider discussion where the various agenda would be aligned before such a decision.
Meanwhile, Mohammed’s decision not to step down has put him on the spot, as some powerful elements in the North, who considered his insistence to remain in the race as affront, are unhappy with him.
Sources revealed that just like the feelings in 2010 when Mohammed, as a senator, moved the motion for the adoption of “Doctrine of Necessity” for former President Goodluck Jonathan, then vice president, to assume the position of acting president when former President Umar Yar’Adua was indisposed, some elements in the North are interpreting his resolve as rebellious to the northern cause.
The northern elements have therefore put Mohammed on the watch-list in politics, especially on things concerning the zone.
However, those who know Mohammed said he is not perturbed as what he did was for the unity of the country and saving the North from being seen as vehemently opposed to the South producing President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor.
