Between the June 2006 defeat of the Third-Term amendment (see The 2006 Third-Term Agenda) and the PDP National Convention of 16–17 December 2006, the field of plausible PDP presidential aspirants was narrowed by a sequence of moves traceable to Aso Rock.
Donald Duke (Cross River) — a two-term governor with a clean reform record, who had the early backing of the southern PDP governors — was summoned to a private meeting with President Obasanjo in October 2006 and informed that the ticket would not go to him. Duke withdrew his candidacy on the convention floor on 17 December 2006, citing 'consultation with the leadership of the party' and the need for southern unity. He later confirmed in multiple interviews — including the 2018 BBC HARDtalk and the 2021 Toyin Falola Lecture — that 'the President made it clear my candidacy was not acceptable; I was advised to step down for the consensus candidate'.
Peter Odili (Rivers) — the best-funded southern aspirant, with reportedly extensive logistical preparation — was served, on the eve of the December 2006 convention, with an EFCC indictment over Rivers State funds. The indictment disqualified him under PDP guidelines. A Federal High Court in Port Harcourt subsequently issued, in 2008, a perpetual injunction restraining the EFCC from acting on the file — finding that the indictment had been procured for political purposes. The Odili camp has consistently named Obasanjo's State House as the source.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua (Governor of Katsina, brother of the late Brig. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, Obasanjo's Chief of Staff during the 1976–79 military regime) was nominated by Obasanjo and confirmed by the convention. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, then Governor of Bayelsa following Diepreye Alamieyeseigha's removal, was added as running-mate.
The April 2007 presidential election was conducted by INEC under Prof. Maurice Iwu. The EU Election Observation Mission's preliminary statement (23 April 2007) and the Transition Monitoring Group final report described the poll as 'not credible' and 'falling far below acceptable standards'. President-elect Yar'Adua, in his own inaugural address (29 May 2007), acknowledged that 'our elections had shortcomings' and constituted the Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais Electoral Reform Committee, whose December 2008 report became the basis for the 2010 Electoral Act reforms.
— Disputed cascades —
Two widely-circulated political cascades trace their origin to the 2003–2007 Obasanjo years. They are recorded here as defensible editorial theses, *not* as documentary chains:
- Third-Term → Atiku rupture → PDP collapse → 2015 alternation. The thesis: Obasanjo's Third-Term push provoked Vice-President Atiku Abubakar's defection and the systematic withdrawal of Atiku-aligned funding from the PDP, weakening party discipline through the Yar'Adua / Jonathan years and culminating in the 2013–14 nPDP breakaway, the formation of the APC and the 2015 loss of power. The Obasanjo–Atiku rupture is documented (Atiku's AC/AD candidacy in 2007; the September 2010 Yola peace conference; the December 2014 PDP primary loss). The causal chain to 2015 is contested: independent accounts (notably John Campbell's *Nigeria and the Nation State*, 2018; Olly Owen's *Nigeria's APC*, 2017) emphasise the role of governors' anti-Jonathan revolt and the Northern Elders Forum rather than personal funding withdrawal.
- Lagos seizure → Tinubu godfather control → Fashola → APC fusion → Tinubu presidency. The thesis: the 2003–07 Obasanjo seizure of Lagos LG funds forced Governor Tinubu to consolidate alternative party-funding machinery (LCDA revenues, Alpha-Beta tax-collection contracts from 2002, LASTMA fines from 2003), which became the financial base of the AC (2006) → ACN (2009) → APC (2013); the 2007 Fashola succession entrenched the model; the 2015 APC presidential victory under Buhari and the 2023 Tinubu presidency are downstream effects. The funding architecture is documented in successive Lagos State Auditor-General reports and the 2018 EFCC Alpha-Beta investigation. The causal chain to the 2023 presidency is contested in mainstream political-science literature.
Both cascades are real political conversations within the Nigerian commentariat. Neither has yet been documented to the standard required for entry as a stand-alone *Story of Record* on this platform.