THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will soon come out with its guidelines on the 2011 elections.

Reliable sources revealed to the Nigerian Tribune that unlike in the past, the presidential primaries will be held first.

The new strategy, said to have been agreed on early in the week by the party, is to hold the presidential primaries of the party ahead of the gubernatorial primaries.

The strategy is based on the conviction that if the presidential primaries are held first, state governors who are not supporting President Goodluck Jonathan will be afraid that if he wins the ticket, he will use the party machinery to stop them from winning their own primaries.

While the strategy is directed at first term state governors, strategists of President Jonathan are also of the view that second term governors who are desirous of installing their surrogates as successors will also be wary of denying the president the votes in their states, a position that may make him work against the emergence of their surrogates as party candidate.

“The new strategy is simple. If the president loses in a state controlled by the PDP, it can only be because the governor worked against him. The president will then have the opportunity to also work against such a governor when it comes to the gubernatorial primaries,” a source close to the leadership of the PDP said on Tuesday.

Further investigation by the Nigerian Tribune revealed that President Jonathan and his team agreed on the strategy after concluding that the president can no longer get the support of a preponderance of the governors.

The president and his team are said to be working round the clock to win the support of majority of the governors of the party. It is hoped that by holding the presidential primaries ahead of the governorship primaries, more governors will be forced to deliver their respective states to avoid reprisals from the party leadership in their own elections.

If the party goes ahead with its plans, it will be the first time that presidential primaries will not be the climax of primary elections in the PDP. In 1998, the party started its primaries from the election of candidates for the local government election through the state candidates and, ultimately, the presidential candidate, at the Jos Convention. The same sequence of elections was repeated in 2003 and 2007, when the party completed the primaries into all offices with the election of a presidential candidate in Abuja.

Meanwhile, leaders of the South-South geopolitical zone are due to hold a strategic meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, tomorrow to cement the relationship between governors of the zone and President Jonathan ahead of the president’s declaration for the 2011 race.

The South-South Peoples Assembly (SSPA), which is the umbrella body of the people in the geopolitical zone, had sent out notices for the meeting but did not clearly disclose the agenda of the meeting.

A notice sent out to stakeholders in the South-South had indicated that the group needed to revive the SSPA to ensure the realisation of the Calabar declaration of 2006.

The declaration is to the effect that the zone would work for the installation of one of its own as the president of Nigeria, to break the long-standing marginalisation in the corridors of power.

Sources close to the group confirmed that activities of one of the prime movers of the group in the past, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, had created anxieties among political leaders of the region and that efforts were on to neutralise the moves to gather support for General Ibrahim Babangida in the South-South.

Sources informed that the SSPA leaders, who had largely been lukewarm about the presidential aspiration of President Jonathan, were now ready to take the battle upon their shoulders and would campaign vigorously for the support of other zones.

The notice of meeting sent out by SSPA read in part: “You are aware of the happenings in the Nigerian polity and the South-South Peoples Assembly (SSPA) in recent times.  A lot of these happenings concern our region critically and we need to make concerted inputs as a body.

“It has, therefore, become an urgent imperative that we meet to revive and re-engineer the assembly, so that we can vigorously pursue the objectives outlined in the Calabar Declaration.”

The meeting, fixed for Ibom Hall, in Uyo, is expected to have in attendance past and present legislators, governors and other political leaders.  Chairman Board of Trustees of the SSPA, DR. M. T. Mbu, and the chairman, Elders Council of the SSPA, Professor B. I. C. Ijomah,  are to chair the meeting.

Sources, however, disclosed that the forum would explore ways by which the loyalty of the governors from the South- South would be kept intact for Jonathan.

“The analysis on the ground now is that many of the governors are double dealing. They don’t really have concrete issues against the president, but we will find out what the issues are and advise the president appropriately,” a source said.

The source added that a contact committee of the SSPA would be raised to liaise with the governors and ensure that they remained a solid bloc for the president during the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Meanwhile, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) has warned against putting any encumbrance in the way of President Jonathan over his plan to contest presidency in the 2011 election.

Addressing a joint  press  conference in Lagos, on Tuesday, the president of the council, General Adeyinka  Adebayo; its secretary, Chief Idowu Sofola and the national publicity secretary, Chief Oluyemi Falade, noted that since the constitution did not prevent the president from running for the post in 2011, nobody should, therefore, come up with any idea of zoning to stall his ambition.

YCE said Nigerians should learn to do things that would strengthen the unity of the country, more so that Jonathan was in office today to complete the term  of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

The council said if Yar’Adua were still alive, he would be entitled to run for a second term in office, if his party gave him the ticket.

YCE stressed that its concern was that Nigerians should be given the option of choosing who led them, adding that a situation  whereby any aspirant was cajoled  out of the race would not be accepted.

“No one should be cajoled out of the race. We want the best for the country, the Yoruba race is equally interested in who rules the country. So that the region won’t be margi-nalised, our concern is that Nigeria should be a better place.

“We believe President Jonathan and Vice-President Namadi  Sambo should be free to contest as president and vice-president respectively, we believe this will strengthen the solidarity of the North and South politically and economically,” the group said.

YCE,  therefore, proposed that in order to run the nation better, parliamentary system of government should be adopted  because it was less expensive, while political parties should be reduced to three or four.

It also advised that the government should hands off funding of political parties, while it proposed that members of the cabinet and special advisers for the three tiers of the government should be reduced.

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