By LUKA BINNIYAT
ABUJA — Ahead of next Saturday’s national convention, the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, said yesterday that there was no room for Alhaji Abubakar Atiku if he failed to pick the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, today.

Atiku

The ANPP, however, said its doors were opened to all aggrieved members of the PDP who lost the  National Assembly and gubernatorial primaries of the PDP in its convention.

In an exclusive chat with Vanguard, the National Publicity Secretary of the ANPP, Chief Emmanuel Anukwe, said it was untrue that the ANPP had arranged its convention for Saturday so as to adopt Atiku as its automatic presidential candidates in the likelyhood that he failed to pick the ticket of the ruling party.

“We have just finished a meeting of the Planning Committee of the National Convention, and we did not mentioned anything about Atiku.

“Atiku is not our business. We have good candidates that we are voting one from which to contest and become the next president.  Please disregard such rumours,” he advised.

He, however, said that any member of the PDP who contested the primaries of the PDP for the Senate, House of Representatives or for gubernatorial ticket and lost could try the ANPP in next Saturday’s convention.

“We are ready to give these grade of contestants a try, since a lot of them feel they were not fairly treated. And some of them actually have electoral values”, he said.

Anukwe did not, however,  say if the ANPP had received intentions from any aggrieved PDP member.

Accreditation for the national convention is expected to start with officially today, but the party is yet to give out details at press time.
So far, no fewer than 3,012 delegates from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, had been pencilled to attend the 2011 national convention of the ANPP to elect their presidential candidate.

According to information received by Vanguard, the North West Zone has the highest number of delegates with 1,166, with Kano State alone producing 442 of them. The North East follows suit, with a total delegates of 780, in which Borno State and Yobe are having nearly equal number of  215 and 217 delegates respectively.

The constitution of the other zones was not yet clear yesterday, but Vanguard investigation showed that the North West and the North East hold the key to producing  the next flag bearer of the ANPP.

But, the zones has three contestant. They are Alh. Bashir Tofa, from Kano State, Gov. Ibrahim Shakarua of Kano State and former Minister of Health, Alh. Dauda Brimah from Adamawa State who stepped down in 2003 and 2007 for Gen, Mohammadu Buhari.

Only Chief Harry Akande, one the candidates comes from the Southern part of the country. If none of the three candidates from the North refuses to step down, the chances of Chief Akande picking the ticket would improved, given the kind of reach-out  he has extended to delegates from the South-South, South East and South West of the country.