HE is hailed and honoured in Abuja, but at home in Kaduna, Vice-President Namadi Sambo is surrounded by political foes and dogged by his inability to pull off electoral victories for his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

It was as such not surprising that doubts have lately arisen about his place on the party’s 2015 presidential ticket. Those doubts were, to his relief ,quenched last Monday.

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

VIce-President Namadi Sambo and his associates would have been reassured with the declaration by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, last Monday, that he is an integral part of the successful presidential team that was endorsed for a second term by the leadership of the party last Thursday.

A day earlier, at a press conference called by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh to introduce the PDP state of the states tour – meant to showcase achievements of the party since 1999- the publicity secretary had affirmed that Sambo’s fate on the ticket would be determined by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Even though he had hailed Sambo as a part of the successful Jonathan team, Metuh knowing his bounds had that Sunday, refrained from speaking more.

“I believe a lot of people are trying to speculate on Jonathan/Sambo ticket, but why don’t we wait when the president declares for such issues to be highlighted? I believe that there is no need to magnify or attempt to import any difference between the President sand the vice President, they have worked so well,” Metuh had said as he progressed to rate the incumbent vice-president as the second most loyal vice-president in the nation’s history, expectedly after former Vice-President Jonathan.

“The Vice President has continued to be the second most loyal Vice President in the history of this country so I believe that he enjoyed the confidence of the President. In 2015 elections if the President accepts to run we will be able to take it to the next level.”

The equivocations on the prospects of Sambo is not unusual for vice-presidents. The first vice-president in the Fourth Republic, Atiku Abubakar was even in more troubled waters in the approach to the 2003 presidential election.

Indeed, when President Olusegun Obasanjo made his declaration for a second term in 2002, Atiku was reportedly left out from the preparations and was even abroad when the idea of making a formal declaration for a second term was done. Atiku was forced to abort his holidays and returned to Nigeria on the eve of the declaration.

At the declaration proper, confusion was created when the then president did not mention that he would retain Atiku on the ticket in the election, setting the stage for clandestine plots by Atiku to contest for the presidency himself.

Sambo, the present vice-president, by all estimates, however, lacks the capacity and craft of Atiku to engage his principal in the way and manner Atiku did in the period between 2002 and 2003.

Despite being a former governor, Sambo has been unable to build a winning election machine for himself.
His election as governor of Kaduna State was through the political machine of his predecessor, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, a man he is now said to have since fallen out with.

Following that election, political pundits have taken to mocking the vice-president in every election cycle on the point that he has almost always consistently failed to deliver his party even in his booth.

Critics of the vice-president have particularly noted that despite the PDP won 22 of the 23 local government areas in the last local council elections only failing to win Kaduna North, the local government where the vice-president has chosen as his base.

It is remarkable that the councillor, local government chairman and all legislators representing the vice-president are from the All Progressives Congress, APC, a fact his political enemies have used to embarrass the vice-president.

Given the political challenges he has encountered at home, it is not surprising that political rivals of the vice-president had in the past sought to capitalise on how they could displace him from his position in the Jonathan administration.

Among those speculated to have eyes on the office of the vice-president are some second term governors notably, Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, Ibrahim Shema of Katsina and Aliyu Babangida of Niger State.

The argument that has been presented to displace Sambo is his perceived incapacity to bring any political benefit to the ticket either in his native Kaduna State or in the Northwest geopolitical zone that is easily seen as the bedrock of the APC.

Political permutations
However, none of the three outgoing governors, Shema, Yuguda or Aliyu may have the capacity to radically alter the political permutations to lift the fortunes of the ticket to warrant the dramatic displacement of Sambo from the ticket.

Given the ringing endorsement he has received from the hierarchy of the party, President Jonathan apparently, may have chosen the safety channel of retaining loyalty over ambition as is viewed with the three other aforementioned outgoing governors.

That thinking may have prompted the statement last Monday by Metuh declaring Sambo as an integral element of the winning presidential team that got the endorsement of the PDP.

“There is no doubt whatsoever that the Vice President has the implicit confidence of the President. The PDP is therefore very pleased that they are working together in actualizing the transformation agenda to the popular acclaim of both Nigerians and the international community. “

“We wish to place on record as well that the 66th NEC meeting of our great party which endorsed President Jonathan as the sole candidate of the PDP for the 2015 general elections, responsibly reasoned and anchored this decision on the outstanding performance of the Jonathan Presidency of which Vice President Sambo is an integral part of.”

“This motion which was unanimously endorsed by NEC left no room for any form of speculation   as Senator Jim Nwobodo who seconded it, expressly commended both the President and his Vice for lifting the banner of the PDP very high while   praying the   NEC to approve the motion.”