The surprise emergence of octogenarian retired civil servant Ahmed Joda as Head of the Transition Committee of the president-elect Muhammed Buhari caused quite a stir in the political camp of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the South West elements in the All Progressives Congress, The Rainbow has learnt.
According to sources, Tinubu and his camp did not receive the development kindly as they felt it was the first kick at the back by president-elect on the Southwest elements that helped him to the presidency.
Tinubu as many others felt that the vice-president-elect, Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN, was the natural person for the job especially since he would be the one that would be actively together with Buhari in the governance process.
It was learnt that Buhari had given impression that his vice, who is an eminent lawyer with deep knowledge on the workings of government, was a settled case for the job of interfacing with the Jonathan team.
Although, they did not make it a public issue, Tinubu and his camp did not know that Joda would be ‘resurrected’ from his retirement to head the committee.
An All Progressives Congress bigwig from Southwest said that the drafting of Joda for the transition job jolted the Tinubu and his close allies of the political power game ahead of them in the emerging dispensation.
The president-elect Muhammed Buhari will be inaugurated as a president on May 29, 2015, on the strength of a political merger championed by Tinubu, who has emerged one of the most powerful political personalities in the country.
But with the presidency in their kitty, some elements in the APC from the North are bent on limiting the influence of the Tinubu political dynasty on Buhari administration.
Our source said that by sidestepping of the vice-president Osinbajo in the transition committee, the northern elements is a warning shot to the Tinubu camp that he will not always have his way.
According to the source, despite the public show of unity, there is an ongoing battle for supremacy between the South West persuasion in the party, which incidentally think they should be generously rewarded for making Buhari presidency possible, and the northern interest group which insists that APC leader Tinubu has been portraying inflated role of his South West in Buhari victory.
They say that despite Tinubu’s acclaimed political clout APC only managed a slim victory over the Peoples Democratic Party in Southwest states.
Already, the northern irredentists have vowed to stop moves by Tinubu to instal one of his loyalists Femi Gbajabamilla as the speaker of House of Representatives or even allow his preference prevail in the race for Senate presidency.
At the weekend, Gbajabiamila tried to distance himself from Tinubu saying that he is not his candidate in order to save his ambition to become Speaker, which appears to be in jeopardy as a rule of his close relationship with Tinubu.
They believe that it is too risky to allow him to accumulate so much clout as it could turn out to be an albatross for the North in future.
Some of these northern power brokers believe that they have to close mark Buhari to ensure that he would not concede too much powers to subordinates as he did in his time as the military head of state.
They reason that though Buhari’s good will made it easy for the north to reclaim power, the victory achieved in the March 28 presidential poll was a northern project which was carefully planned and executed since 2010, when Yar’Adua died in office.
It was further learnt that the difficulty in settling for the key offices of the National Assembly is another is because of the power play.
A source said that the thinking among the Tinubu camp is that the decision of the president-elect to to claim disinterest in the unfolding power in the choice of key officials of the National Assmenly was a deliberate strategy to allow the northern interests prevail.
