President Olusegun Obasanjo is busy looking for a successor, as he met with governors from his party and indicated that in 2007, a governor in the South-South would be his preference for president.
That is if the PDP zoned the ticket to the geopolitical zone, the governor is picked by the party as its flagbearer and voted in by the electorate that was taken on a merry-go-round recently in the controversial campaign for extension of tenure for the President and governors.
Those in the know of the inner workings of the President and the PDP say a South-South president is preferable and that there are three possible contenders in that regard.
"And when the chips are down," said a PDP stalwart at the weekend, "the choice of who to succeed the President will be made by the President himself."
The source discountenanced the "the governor-shopping committee," and narrowed the potential president to one of two governors who are regarded as close to President Obasanjo.
The source rationalised the "choice" around the issue of controversy. It said: "The one in mind is not even the governor whose name tends to feature consistently in the press as Obasanjo's friend and close ally in the zone.
"He is definitely the least controversial of the South-South governors and he is the man after the President's heart."
Prior to and during last week's expanded PDP caucus meeting at Aso Rock, Abuja, the case for North/South rotation of the presidency was at play.
Although the southern governors at the parley were reportedly circumspect on the issue, the northern governors "clearly showed where they stand" through one of their colleagues.
"It was this governor," according to sources, "that rose to challenge the President for naming a governor from the Southwest, instead of the dean of the Governors' Forum, Obong Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State, to held the governors' committee for the president."
The northern governor was said to have argued that Attah chairs the governors' meetings and that it was not proper for the President to impose somebody on the governors' search committee.
It was gathered that from the meeting, the governors came away with the notion that Obasanjo would want his successor to come from the South-South and the North had to tackle this right there.
