Real politics has just begun. Undoubtedly the biggest party in Nigeria is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It can be argued whether the party actually won all the votes credited to it in 2007. So far, no less than 10 governorship results credited to the PDP have been cancelled. The courts felt disgusted with the method that produced Timipre Sylva in Bayelsa, Lyel Imoke in Cross River, Emmanuel Uduaghan in Delta and Adams Oshiomhole, all in the Southsouth.
In the Southwest, Segun Oni of Ekiti, Segun Agagu of Ondo and Olagunsoye Oyinloka have all kissed the dust. They were disgraced out of office as their claims to the throne could not stand up to judicial scrutiny. In the North, the opposition was able to prove that elections of Ibrahim Idris of Kogi, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa and Aliyu Wamakko failed the test of democracy.
Elsewhere, in Rivers, Rotimi Amaechi managed to convince the judiciary at the Supreme Court that the PDP violently assailed the heart and soul of democracy. The mandate that had been handed Celestine Omehia without recourse to due process was retrieved and handed the rightful candidate of the party.
If that was an internal matter for the party, it was not exactly the same in Anambra State. The Iwu INEC had conducted an election that amounted to a nullity in the state. Peter Obi of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) succeeded in convincing the courts that his tenure according to the constitution had not expired. Otherwise, there were people challenging the charade of an election in the court.
The lie in that poll was exposed when a rerun was conducted in February. The Iwu register used could not stand up to scrutiny as about 300,000 voters eventually voted, while Andy Uba of PDP had been "voted" in by more than 1 million votes in 2007. It is unfortunate. The man at the centre of the electoral fraud perpetrated, whether in the party or at the general poll was the president, General Olusegun Obasanjo.
The story has changed now. While PDP remains the biggest party given its hold on the levers of power in a majority of the states, it cannot take anything for granted. The landscape in the country has changed, the do-or-die president is no longer in power. The name of the man at the centre of things now is Goodluck Jonathan. In place of the military mentality displayed by the former president, the current president has at least been preaching conformity to the rule of law. When his party lost at the courts in Ekiti and Osun, he promptly congratulated the winners.
Last Monday was a new day in the presidential contest in the PDP. For the first time in the Fourth Republic, there will be a real contest for the presidential ticket of the ruling party. Abubakar Atiku, was picked by the nine-man Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) as the long-awaited consensus aspirant for the party's ticket.
The Atiku factor (http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/politics/20165.html)