Barely 24 hours to the publication of names of governorship and State Assembly candidates by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) stands the risk of not fielding a candidate for Plateau State.

Recall that the NDC sent in the name of the state chairman of the party, Yakubu Ndam, as a place-holder following the purported suspension of Da Jonathan Sunday Akuns, who emerged unopposed from the NDC direct primary election for the state.

Based on the contrived logjam over the governorship ticket, the North West National Vice Chairman of the party, Barnabas Ejisi and the Plateau State chairman, Ndam, have been making frantic effort to procure a proper substitute for the place-holder.

As stakeholders became aware that the NDC governorship ticket is up for auction, the NDC leaders decided to approach the vice presidential candidate of the party, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, in a bid to get the upper hand in the supremacy between them and Akuns, who was the only aspirant that purchased nomination forms and went for the straw poll.

In a telephone interaction, the state chairman, Ndam, told The Guardian that the decision to use him as a placeholder was to enable the stakeholders agree on a consensus candidate, adding that he does not recognise the fact that the ticket was under contention.

However, those plotting to supplant Akuns, who is from Plateau Central Senatorial District, have run into a brick wall after finding out that zoning convention in the state did not favour Ndam to become the substantive gubernatorial standard bearer.

Led by the National Vice Chairman, North Central, Ejisi, the stakeholders reached out to former Jonah David Jang, to explore the possibility of using Jang’s preferred governorship candidate in the Kabiru Tanimu Turaki faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Garba Sunday Biggs, to replace the placeholder and deny Akuns access to the ticket.

Penultimate weekend, when the NDC vice presidential candidate, Kwankwaso, visited Jang in his Abuja residence to felicitate with him on his 80th birth anniversary, Jang quietly rejected the offer to move his candidate to NDC.

It was gathered that in anticipation of a favourable outcome from his meeting with Jang, Kwnkwaso had detailed the Kano State gubernatorial candidate of the party, Aminu Gwarzo, to meet with the members of the Plateau State Kwankwasiyya Movement in readiness to throw their support around Garuba Biggs as the NDC governorship flagbearer for Plateau State.

A close ally of the former governor confided in The Guardian that Jang recalled how Kwankwaso failed to support him (Jang) during the contest for the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) chairmanship election, which returned Rotimi Amaechi with 18 votes to Jang’s 15 and eventually led to the factionalisation of the NGF during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

Checks by The Guardian revealed that the Plateau gubernatorial crisis is among the cases being looked into by the Northern Zonal Reconciliation Sub-Committee set up by the NDC to reconcile various complaints and disputations over the outcome of the party’s primary and state structures in the region.

By the time INEC publishes the list of governorship candidates of the 19 political parties taking part in the 2027 general election on Saturday, it would be seen whether the NDC will field its nominated candidate or fail to field a candidate for the incumbent Governor Caleb Muftwang of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to have an easy re-election.