IBB picks PDP nomination form this week
TAIWO ADISA, Abuja - 24.10.2006




INDICATIONS have emerged that the former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, will pick the Expression of Interest and the nomination forms of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after the Sallah break this week.


Sources close to the Babangida Campaign Organisation in Abuja told the Nigerian Tribune that the former military leader had concluded plans to push up activities of his campaign after the festivities.


“We slowed things down deliberately because of the Ramadan fast and because we also know that once IBB pitches tent with one party, that is the beginning of politics,” an official of the IBB campaign organisation said.


Though the spokesman of the campaign organisation, Barrister Venatius Ikem, was not specific on the actual date IBB has set aside to pick the forms, he said that the General would do that after the Sallah break.


“The General will be picking up the PDP form after the holidays, we have stayed off a bit because of the Sallah and the fast, but that is now over and we will return to full swing,” Ikem said.


Ikem also told the Nigerian Tribune that the campaign organisation expected that IBB would actually fly a flag of a coalition of political parties.


“It is not unexpected that at the end of the day, we will have a coalition of up to 30 parties backing IBB and that would be a big plus for us,” he said.


Babangida was set to inaugurate the state coordinators of his campaign outfit shortly before the Ramadan fast, but the event was put off.


There are indications, however, that the inauguration of the state structures of his campaign would be done this week.


It, however, remains unclear whether IBB had secured President Olusegun Obasanjo’s nod for his ambition. Babangida played a role in drafting Obasanjo into the presidential race in 1999.


But a Presidency source said on Monday that there existed no pact between Babangida and Obasanjo.