POLITICS

2015: Northern govs plot to
stop Jonathan
May 21st, 2012 by DaSort
THREE years to the next general elections, the
battle line for the 2015 presidential race appears
drawn. Multiple reliable sources in government
and the Peoples Democratic Party told our
correspondents over the weekend that prominent
Northern politicians, including governors, were
plotting to stop President Goodluck Jonathan’s
alleged bid for a second term.
This is in spite of the denial by the Presidency that
Jonathan has no re-election ambition. The
President, in a statement by his spokesman,
Reuben Abati, had said the speculations about his
second term bid were the handiwork of “mischief
makers and opportunists.”
The PUNCH, however, gathered that the
Presidency’s denial was not believed by Northern
politicians. Our correspodents report that those
who are bent on stopping Jonathan are hoping to
use the budding presidential ambitions of
Governors Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Isa Yuguda
(Bauchi) and Babangida Aliyu (Niger) as rallying
points for Northern voters.
This plan is, however, likely to meet with stiff
opposition. Some groups, in the South-South,
have commenced activities to counter all
opposition to the President’s second term.
Already, the Ijaw National Congress has accused
the North of a “moral deficit” in asking for the
number one job in 2015.
Aliyu, at the Northern Governors’ Forum meeting
in Kaduna on Thursday, had vowed that the North
would not allow the 2015 presidency to elude it.
“We must be united more than ever to go into the
2015 elections as one entity with the aim of
producing the President,” he had told his
colleagues.
A member of the PDP National Working
Committee, who spoke in confidence with one of
our correspondents, said, “The journeys of some
of the northern governors across the country are
part of the subtle campaigns for the Presidency.”
Investigations showed that the plot to stop
Jonathan is spearheaded by governors who are no
longer seeking second term tickets. They, findings
show, are leading the campaign for the return of
the Presidency to the North. A source in the PDP
told our correspodents that the governors were
doing this because they wanted to contest for the
Presidency in 2015.
Out of the 19 states in the North, the PDP controls
14 – Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Jigawa, Kaduna,
Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau,
Sokoto and Taraba.
The All Nigeria Peoples Party is in control of Borno,
Yobe and Zamfara -while the Congress for
Progressive Change is in charge of Nasarawa.
Out of the 14 PDP states, 12 of the governors are
serving their second term in office. Only four,
which are those of Kaduna, Gombe, Kwara and
Kogi are in their first term.
Among the northern governors who are in their
second terms, only the governors of Gabriel
Suswan (Benue), Danbaba Suntai (Taraba) and
David Jang (Plateau) are likely to support
Jonathan’s second bid.
Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji AbdulFatai Ahmed,
The PUNCH gathered, might not support the
President’s second term.
Ahmed’s godfather, who is also his predecessor,
Dr. Bukola Saraki, is believed to be having
problems with the President.
The governors elected on the platform of the PDP,
after the party’s National Executive Committee
meeting on August 13, 2010, had only agreed to
support Jonathan for a single term of four years.
But Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, in an
interview with journalists on Saturday in Lagos,
said the clamour by some northern governors to
have a president from the North in 2015 would
amount to ethnicity or the regionalisation of the
office.
Dickson, a protege of the President, said, “The
2015 elections are still three years or more from
now; it is too early; it will overheat the polity and
distract the President.”
Dickson’s statement came barely a week after
Sunday PUNCH reported that Jonathan’s closest
associates had begun the campaign for his 2015
presidential ambition.
The report had quoted the National Vice-
Chairman, South-South Zone of the party, Dr.
Stephen Oru, as saying in Yenagoa, Bayelsa
State, that, “The PDP must triumph in the July 14
governorship election in Edo State to provide a
unified regional base for Jonathan to actualise his
second term presidential ambition in 2015.”
Meanwhile, the Ijaw National Congress National
Secretary, Mr. Robinson Esitel, on Sunday reacted
to the position of the Northern Governors’ Forum
on the 2015 presidential election.
He said, “The issue of who would become the
President in 2015 is a choice that will be made by
Nigerians as a whole and not by a section.
“The Ijaw nation insists categorically that
Jonathan’s Presidency is not a Presidency of four
years, but a Presidency of eight years under the
constitution and subject to the good conscience
of Nigerians.
“The North should not blame the perceived
underdevelopment of the region on anybody.
They have been in governance of this country,
both under the military and civilain regimes, for
the better part of the time that this country has
been in existence.”
@amchibyke pin-21BEC6C1