ABUJA—LESS than 12 hours to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential contest, President Goodluck Jonathan and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, were to be locked in a tour of delegates’ camps to do a last minute round of pleas for votes.

Vanguard was reliably informed that the tour of the delegates’ camps by President Jonathan was expected to kick off by 10 p.m.

Although the President was scheduled to meet with the delegates on a state by state basis, Vanguard learnt that the President’s meeting with delegates from the South West geo_political zone was billed to hold at the Ogun State Governors’ Lodge on Jose Marty Street, Asokoro.
Vanguard also learnt that the South West delegates were persuaded by the geo-political zones Presidential Campaign co-ordinator, Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State, to meet in one venue.

Meeting with President Jonathan

Before the President’s visit, Governor Daniel had made an elaborate preparation for the meeting with President Jonathan.
Governor Daniel told Vanguard: “I am sure of victory today and I have never been negative in my life.  What we need in this country is a paradigm shift that would be in the overall interest of our people. Our people are the ones we owe the responsibility of good governance and development.

“For the delegates from the South West Zone, we are a sophisticated lot and our people are discerning. They know what is best and that is why we are rooting for President Goodluck Jonathan. I have no doubt in my mind that we would be victorious. That does not in any way mean that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is a push over.  He is a leader in our party and a great leader for that matter. I can confess that this would be the keenest presidential primary in PDP but we are very sure of victory”.

For the former Vice President, Vanguard learnt that a multi-dimensional approach to making contacts with the delegates was employed.
Yesterday, a statement from his Campaign Organisation and made public referred to a survey it claimed was prepared by a team of scholars led by Dr. Nu’uman Habib, former head, Department of Sociology, Bayero University, Kano the prospective voters were responding to questions put to them during a survey of sampled states of the federation.

The role of money

Meanwhile, money became the order of the day as delegates also created an artificial sense of self_worth. Text messages started flying about that one of the front runners, specifically the camp of Atiku, was offering between N2million and N5million per delegate. This, it was gathered, initially created panic in the camp of President Jonathan. A strategy meeting was hurriedly held at the residence of the Senate President, David Mark, a strong supporter of President Jonathan.

However, when Vanguard contacted Mallam Garba Shehu, he debunked the claims, stressing that “these are just spurious claims.”
But what Vanguard gathered was that whereas the two camps were actually involved in what a source described as ‘financial mobilisation’ for the delegates, some of who were discovered to actually be the ones spearheading the rumour.
Upon investigation, it was discovered that money was being shared and given to delegates.

A source in one of the camps asked Vanguard: “Who does not know that we are both spending money for the delegates.  Even hotel accommodation is part of the deal on the table for delegates.”

Yet, what some of the delegates were doing was to play the candidates against one another by making up fabulous stories of how attempts were made to induce them but which were rebuffed.

That way, the delegates would hope to either get a higher value of financial mobilization, or be seen to be very loyal.