Thread by @DemolaRewaju

Was mildly surprised last night to see that the APC was also holding a convention from which the only positive I see is that someone isn’t totally lifeless but merely sleeping at one of the most important events of his life.

But let’s talk a bit about #PDPConventionPHC.

The permutations involved the horse-trading between aspirants, the concessions made in delegates, political deals and also rumours from online about Cash - which I saw none of personally, know no one who saw but I am certain happened as always in politics.

#PDPConventionPHC

But first let me explain (as much as I can) a little about the PDP delegate system for the #PDPConventionPHC of 2018.

A National Delegate is one (s)elected from each of Nigeria’s 774 LGAs to vote at the National Convention/Presidential Primaries.

So you have 774 Elected.

Although the process should be open to all card-carrying members of the party, there are leaders in every LGA who never aspire for public elected office, all they want is to be recognised Nationally as delegates - so it’s usually a consensus of selection by local leaders.

In addition to them, you now have the Statutory Delegates to the National Convention who emerge by virtue of their office (Chairman, Deputy, Women Leader etc) at Ward, LGA, State, Zonal and National level. Each of the 36 states and zones still have equal representation there.

Another set of delegates are the party flagbearers for Governor, Deputy Governor, Senate etc - still equal numbers per state and a total of 109 Senatorial aspirants, 36 X 2 (Gov. & Deputy) flagbearers.

But after this, it gets tricky for PDP and non-PDP states.

Where it becomes tricky is that elected public office-holders who are in PDP are also delegates - along with former office-holders - From Governor to LGA Chairman to former Senators, former Governors, Ministers etc.

So PDP states have more delegates by this permutation.

States like Rivers, Ekiti or Bayelsa with full PDP structures have more delegates at #PDPConventionPHC than states like Lagos or Kano where the LGA Chairmen are not PDP.

(Lagos has one Councillor, Isaac Uwalaka but the state exco forgot to include him, crazy).

So that’s that.

Now, some states decide to go together in one direction while others decide to operate individually.

States that operate together usually have one strong leader (usually the Governor or a strong PDP flagbearer).

Where no Governor exists, aspirants reach out to delegates direct.

Various offers are made - potential positions in Govt such as SFG, Ministerial slots for states and the juicy VP position are promised in exchange for delegate votes and sometimes cash for delegates.

A deal with Peter Obi for e.g. could have got Anambra delegates for an aspirant

It’s impossible though to know who is with who so I can only say the parts I can share, from what I know.

Atiku has been helped by a strong ground game, Saraki’s brilliant campaign pushed him forward and the Tambuwal ‘anointing’ rumours helped him also.

The ‘anointing’ is basically that party leaders are supporting one aspirant to be candidate ahead of others and attracts votes from people who don’t want to “waste their votes” on a losing aspirant.

But there are also Dark Horses - not favoured to win but things sometimes align.

The frontliners here were clear ab initio - Saraki, Atiku, Tambuwal and Kwankwaso with a strong national movement behind him.

The dark horses were Sule Lamido and Makarfi and the rest with all due respect, hopeful aspirants but not likely to emerge.

So the horse-trading...

Nothing I say from here can be taken to the bank. If the aspirants deny or their supporters dispute, then I’m wrong.

Kwankwaso offered to step down but only to Sule Lamido. Dankwambo (who is also a semi-frontliner I forgot to name) also offered to step down but only to Lamido.

Pressure was then mounted on Lamido to in turn step down for one of the frontliners - basically to play kingmaker - but he refused.

The pressure was mainly to favour Tambuwal whom some Governors supported but nobody wanted to step down for him.

So everyone went to the field.

Saraki had perhaps the most ubiquitous campaign with Senators in stray states winning him delegate votes - Ekiti for instance was led by Fayose but Sen. Olujimi is firmly with Saraki - and so Saraki would have numbers from there and so on.

Rivers though, became interesting.

Wike supported Tambuwal - but as I said when the politically naive started wailing, “a Wike does not a PDP make.”

When talks broke down without concessions or headway, Rivers delegates were instructed to “go and vote their minds”.

Some still went with Tambuwal but freely.

So while some of us were at the convention ground yesterday and grooving with Davido, the real powerbrokers were making deals.

Datti Baba-Ahmed was first to step into the venue, followed by Tambuwal and they started serious discussions. I managed to get a pic.

Too much is read into these public side-talks by the way - those men could have been discussing nkwobi or lovemaking - but they could easily have also been discussing Nigeria’s Next President which #PDPConventionPHC will produce insha Allah.

Atiku came in next then others too.

#PDPConventionPHC will produce a winner in a couple of minutes but the beauty is that it was an openly free and fair contest, transparently done without rancour and with all stakeholders agreeing to work together.

Delegates mostly considered “who can defeat Buhari?”, not money.

We will celebrate these 12 Heroes of the #PDPConventionPHC as Great Leaders of the Party henceforth but let me add this:

Whoever emerges will be under much fire from the sad folks of the APC side on here and their paymasters in Govt in the next few days - pay them no mind.

Whoever emerges (😉😉😉) will also be dismissed by some APC leaders as inconsequential and Oshiomhole will say “This will be APC’s easiest defeat!”

He’ll be lying and if you look more closely, he’ll have wet pants because PDP has consistently defied all odds, against their wish.

They said PDP would never survive and they left.
They said Modu Sheriff will end PDP but he didn’t.
They said Ekiti and Osun ‘loss’ will destroy PDP but we are here.
They said Wike will determine the winner alone, he opened up the process.

Whatever they say, God will shame them!

The pain of loss may make some aspirants downcast this morning - even Baba Jonah Jang may have believed he could win - and its normal.

But from this #PDPConventionPHC, many aspirants will embrace the winner and will support him to defeat Buhari in 2019 with our support.

Whoever wins #PDPConventionPHC did not emerge by imposition, by vote-buying or by fraud - everything was transparently done.

APC and their media though will tell you that Wike imposed the winner, the winner used money and silly stuff as they always say.

May the liars perish.

#PDPConventionPHC is a VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY by any standard.

The Winner will need the dynamic Saraki structure, the Atiku manifesto, the Kwankwaso movement, the Tambuwal support, the Lamido disposition, Datti’s brand and the solidarity of all of us online.

We got this!!!