REVEALED: How Peter Obi lost out As Minister:

After months of a rigorous but quiet campaign to become minister, former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, lost out of the race last week to a more forceful and, by some measure, overwhelming, counter push by his state’s influential power brokers, presidency officials and associates of the ex-governor have told newsmen. Mr. Obi, a well-known ally of President Goodluck Jonathan, lost out Wednesday as the president named the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road...

Safety Corps, Osita Chidoka, as a new minister in Mr. Obi’s stead. Mr. Chidoka is likely to head the aviation ministry, left vacant for about five months since the removal of former minister, Stella Oduah, over allegations of abuse of office. As a member of the opposition All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Mr. Obi maintained an unusual closeness with the president for months, and at some instance, secured from the president federal benefits reportedly reserved by Mr. Jonathan for PDP governors. Presidency insiders and close associates told newsmen that the former governor was edged out of the race to becoming a minister in an elaborate scheme by powerful members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Anambra state.

Those who led the campaign against his candidacy were the PDP’s billionaire financiers, Authur Eze and Emeka Offor; a serving senator, Andy Uba, and the former minister of aviation, Ms. Oduah, the insiders said. According to officials well briefed about the president’s decision, those opposed to Mr. Obi’s nomination seized on the former governor’s membership of the opposition APGA, a party which Mr. Obi successfully led to victory in Anambra State’s recent governorship election. In intense lobbying that lasted weeks, our sources said the PDP chiefs told President Jonathan that handing Mr. Obi a ministerial slot, in addition to his control of the state machinery through Mr. Obiano, would be a costly error that might backfire. Under such arrangement, they argued, PDP supporters at the lowest rungs of party structure in the state, would feel “demoralised”, and that that could prove risky for Mr. Jonathan’s all but certain plan to seek re-election in 2015.