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Barely a week to
the presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the
Atiku Abubakar campaign organisation has alleged a plot to shut him out
of the exercise.

Mr. Abubakar, a
former vice president, who spoke through the director general of the
Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation (ACO), Ben Obi, in Abuja
yesterday, warned that preparations for conducting the party’s
primaries, scheduled for January 13, have been shrouded in secrecy,
leaving room for suspicion.

Mr. Obi had raised
a similar alarm on December 22 last year when he wrote the national
chairman of the PDP, Okwesilieze Nwodo, requesting the leadership of
the party to forward to his group the comprehensive guidelines for the
conduct of the presidential primary election. He also demanded for a
meeting between the leadership of the party and the organisation, so
that it could be better informed about the plan towards the conduct of
the primary election.

He said the
National Working Committee (NWC) of the party subsequently invited the
organisation to a meeting on December 28, during which it was agreed
that the meeting should be shifted to January 3.

“January 3 has come and gone without the meeting taking place,” Mr. Obi said.

“Since then, I
have placed several calls to the national chairman of the party and
sent several SMS messages. The national chairman kept telling me that
he is still consulting and revert to me on the proposed meeting,” he
added.

More worrying signs

The campaign
director also alerted that there are a number of troubling signals
surrounding the conduct of the presidential primaries. According to
him, precisely one week to the primaries, the party has not composed
the National Convention Committee, which he said has the overall
mandate of planning and executing the exercise.

He also said that
less than five days to the screening of the presidential aspirants,
slated for 11 January, 2011, the presidential screening panel is yet to
be constituted.

“In spite of our
unrelenting efforts and considerable pressure on the party leadership
to convene a meeting between it and all the presidential campaign
organisations, no date, to the best of our knowledge, has been chosen
for this dialogue to take place,” Mr. Obi said.

He said that the
organisation is yet to receive any official communication from the PDP
“on the guidelines and ground rules that will govern the conduct of the
primary election; about the time, location and method of screening
delegates; the issuance of passes to accredited officials; the security
arrangements for such a major political undertaking; a published list
of all delegates who will participate in the voting exercise; voting
method and procedures; counting and announcement of results; and a
thousand and one other details that must be clearly set out weeks
before the conduct of the election.”

The campaign group
further complained about the conduct of the primary election held so
far in some states, saying it is extremely troubling. He said his
organisation has information that in Plateau, Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Benue,
Ogun, and Yobe States, a significant membership of the party are either
pulling out of its fold or threatening to do so.

Mr. Obi said after
an exhaustive examination of the situation, the organisation is
demanding that a meeting between the leadership of the party and the
various campaign organisations should be convened as expeditiously as
possible, so that all matters relating to the conduct of the primary
election are thrashed out and agreed upon as a binding arrangement
between all the parties concerned. He explained that the proposed
meeting is a necessary condition towards the conduct of a free, fair,
credible, transparent and acceptable primary election.

He also said the list of delegates who will vote at the primaries should be published and widely advertised in the print media.

“This list is as
crucial to the successful conduct of the primary election as the list
of Nigerian voters which the INEC must publish before the conduct of
the general election,” he said.