Presidential Race:Consensus candidate:It's between IBB and ATIKU

The Mallam Adamu Ciroma-led 17 wise men saddled with the responsibility of picking a Northern consensus candidate for the PDP presidential primaries appear to have narrowed down its choice to former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Two other aspirants — General Muhammadu Aliyu Gusau and Governor Bukola Saraki started the race together with Babangida and Atiku having agreed that whoever eventually emerges the choice of the “wise men”would be supported by the others to square up with President Goodluck Jonathan in the PDP primaries
Saturday Vanguard gathered in Abuja that the “Wise-men”announced at their conclusion at the end of their tour of the Northern states which was designed to consult widely with stakeholders on who among the aspirants would best be suited for the North.
Prior to the announcement of the tour, the committee adopted four criteria in assessing each of the aspirants.

Atiku Abubakar and Ibrahim Babangida Favoured

These were age, experience, national acceptability and contribution to democracy and democratic values.
The report of the wise-men is now expected to be harmonised by an ad-hoc committee of five which is scheduled to turn in its report next week after which the favoured candidate may be announced.
Speaking last week in an interview, Mallam Ciroma had said the committee owed it a duty to follow a comprehensive and acceptable process in carrying out its assignment.
His words: “We are aware of the time problem because the time problem, affects those who are the aspirants. The aspirants, now they cannot let go in pursuing campaigning because they don’t know. Whose one of them is going to be the consensus candidate? If you are going to spend, you have to know whether you are the one.
“So it is their problem. It is a constraint on the candidates. So we know it. So we ourselves want to do it as quickly as possible, but still we have to follow a process that will be acceptable to them and to anybody who examines what we are doing. So, we are beginning I hope this week, but I cannot tell you when we will be able to do it but we also know but we have to do it in time to enable whoever emerges to campaign.”