THE rift between President Goodluck Jonathan and governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) worsened during the week.
Niger State governor, Alhaji Babangida Aliyu, who is also the chairman of Northern Governor’s Forum, introduced a new dimension to the crisis last weekend when he announced that a written, signed agreement existed between the governors and the president limiting the latter to only one term.
Although the Presidency has challenged the governors to present the agreement, a source close to one of the governors said they would rather challenge the president to come out personally to deny the existence of the document.
“All the aides denying the existence of the agreement were not part of the closed door meeting where the agreement was signed. We won’t dignify them with a response. We will rather wait for President Jonathan himself to come out personally and deny the existence of the document,” the source said.
In the beginning
“I, Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, have decided to humbly offer myself as a candidate in the presidential primaries of our great party… in order to stand for the 2011 presidential elections,” Jonathan had said at a rally in Abuja, vowing to unite Nigerians and urging voters to cast their ballots for him. “I have come to say to all of you that Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is the man you need to put Nigeria right. I have come to launch a campaign of ideas, not one of calumny. I have come to preach love, not hate. I have come to break you away from divisive tendencies of the past which have slowed our drive to true nationhood,” he said.
That was how President Jonathan unequivocally threw his hat into the ring about two years ago. He did so through his Facebook page after keeping many guessing for months, following the circumstances that threw him up as Nigeria’s number one citizen and the first to attain the office from his Ijaw clan and the South-South zone.
A few days after, he officially proclaimed his ambition to seek the actual mandate of the Nigerian electorate, having become president based on the doctrine of necessity invoked by the National Assembly, following the death of ailing substantive president, Umaru Yar’Adua. His critics and adversaries become more cacophonous, especially in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because of what they believed was his calculated attempt to torpedo a fundamental standing policy of the party, as well as the stabilising agent of the multi-ethnic and cultural country.
A scenario akin to the 2011 trend played out on the eve of the New Year in January 2013. Some seemingly innocuous posters had flooded strategic parts of Abuja suggesting that Jonathan had indicated to seek a second term of four years at the expiration of his current tenure. One of them had the president’s portrait and read: “2015: No vacancy in Aso Rock. Let’s do more. One good term deserves another. Support Dr Goodluck Azikiwe Jonathan for 2015 Presidency.” His Special Adviser on Media, Dr. Reuben Abati, swiftly declared: “The President is focused on delivering on his mandate for Nigerians and would not be distracted by politics of 2015.
PDP’s doublespeak
One major reason the crisis subsisted was what some critics saw as the subtle endorsement of the posters and its intended message. The claim by Abati that those behind the posters were only exercising their right of expression was interpreted as a replay of the activities of a plethora of faceless mushroom groups which championed similar campaigns before the necessary official organs blew the whistle for the 2011 elections. And PDP is regarded as lending credence to the suspicion as it has declared that the 2015 election would be an open race instead of being in tandem with its zoning arrangement.
The party’s spokesman, Chief Olisa Metuh, stated, “We also wish to make it clear that the PDP has its own constitution where processes for candidates’ selection are clearly spelt out.”
Jonathan/governors relationship
The robust relationship between Jonathan and PDP governors predated the 2011 elections. It climaxed in 2010 as the tempo of horse trading became upbeat. In fact, the governors had promoted then esprit de corps, as the president had been a former governor of Bayelsa State. The height of the comradeship was when the governors resolved to contribute money for his presidential nomination forms to underscore their support for his ambition. Abati’s predecessor, Ima Niboro, had, in a statement, said the governors were impressed with his principal’s intention to contest the 2011 election. The total amount was N11 million, comprising N1 million for expression of interest and N10 million for the nomination form.
Real deal
Notwithstanding the ongoing claims and counter-claims over the compromise reached then, feelers in the PDP said the matter was beyond whether or not there was an agreement that Jonathan would allow the North to produce the party’s candidate in 2015. A source said all the major players in the party were privy to the agreement and hence, one of the leading figures in the party who initiated the Jonathan presidency project was alarmed that there was a deliberate move now by some vested interests to renege on the said agreement. According to the source, this has crystallised in the crisscrossing of the nation’s political landscape by a top chieftain of the party and a number of other top shots in the party in an attempt at saving the PDP umbrella. The leaders were said to have ensured the backing of the governors for the party’s candidate based on the issue of the agreement. According to the source, the governors would have used their influence that had always manifested in high-level party sessions and meetings to sway the ticket, but for the intervention of the top shots sometime in December 2010. It is not clear if their decision to soft-pedal was meant to pave the way for one of their own to succeed Jonathan in 2015, but the sources claimed that the governors had insisted on the need for faithfulness on the mutual agreement.
Hornets’ nest
The Niger State governor, Dr Babangida Aliyu, is among the figures from the North eyeing the presidency in 2015. In his twin capacity as governor and chairman of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF), he has consistently championed the cause of the North within the context of the Nigerian project. Checks showed that his decision last Sunday during a radio programme in Kaduna to join the fray on the debate on single term for the president only amplified the hushed tones the matter had been subjected to in the PDP top echelon and powerful intra-party caucuses. Most PDP governors from the South are believed to share Aliyu’s position on the matter.
Aliyu said, “If there was no deal, why did the NEC meeting which we boycotted on Wednesday take place on Thursday, December 16, 2010? It was at that NEC meeting that all the guidelines for the National Assembly, governorship and presidential primaries were approved.
“There was a deal between the president and us, the PDP governors. It was signed and sealed, but was not circulated to the media. What was circulated to the media was the one read by Shema. Why did the president describe the governors as the field commanders? Why did the then national chairman of PDP (Nwodo) say that there was a problem which was resolved within 48 hours? These are the questions the president should answer, and not his aides.”
Dalhatu Tafida
There are also insinuations that some utterances of the Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dalhatu Tafida, attest to the single term agreement.
Sometime in 2010 while addressing newsmen preparatory to the president officially proclaiming his 2011 presidential bid, Tafida, in his capacity as the Director-General of the Jonathan/Sambo campaign organisation, allegedly stated that Jonathan would only seek single tenure that would end in 2015. He was quoted as claiming that, “The President wants to run for one term… Let us give him the four years and see how he performs.” Some critics often similarly cite a supposed statement credited to the president in Ethiopia at an African Union summit that, inter alia, “I would have loved that Nigerians in the Diaspora vote this year. But to be frank with you, that is going to be difficult now.” He reportedly added, “Nigerians in the Diaspora will not vote, but I will work towards it by 2015, even though I will not be running for election.”
Obasanjo/Atiku connection
While his close associates claimed Obasanjo would remain taciturn over the issue, at least, for now, many of them alleged there was indeed a mutual agreement on the matter. About three close confidants of the former president said he actually made reference to the issue in Abuja during the final campaign of the Jonathan/Sambo ticket in March 2011. According to them, Obasanjo extolled Jonathan for agreeing to run for a single term with a plea to Nigerians to give him the opportunity.
Blackmail
Some sympathizers believe the issue was designed to blackmail the president. According to them, it is part of the propaganda machinery those opposed to change would want to employ to regain power. But they claim that such tactics would fail because of the sovereign power of the Nigerian people. Similar sentiments are reportedly pervading the Presidency, which believes such agreement only existed in the imaginations of the promoters of the single term syndrome.
President’s men
Presidential Adviser on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, had said the claim by Aliyu was “frivolous” and lacking any basis. He stressed: “The alleged agreement only exists in the figment of the imagination of somebody with presidential ambition. I am telling you without any iota of doubt and with all sense of responsibility that there has never been any agreement or pact signed by the President that he is going to run for only one term. He has never told me about it and I have never heard about it. The governors said they have the agreement, let them bring it. I know as of fact that there is no such agreement.
“We are all Nigerians and if you want to pursue your own ambition, like I have always said, you have the right. You have the right to pursue your ambition to be the President of Nigeria. But you don’t have to concoct stories to justify your ambition.
“President Jonathan never signed such a pact, but only gave Nigerians the general guarantee of one man, one vote and that no one has the political strength to intimidate the President to run away from his constitutional right of contesting the next elections should he decide to do so.”
Governors under pressure
The single term saga has heightened the cold war between the PDP governors and the Presidency. The governors are flexing muscles with the party leadership over other sundry issues such as the choice of a new Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, dissolution of the Adamawa State executive committee of the party by the national headquarters, as well as the removal of the party’s National Secretary, Prince Olagunsoye Oyilola. His removal has continued to trigger a chain of events in the party in the South-West. And in other zones, some PDP governors have publicly claimed to have become victims of blackmail because of their decision to remain resolute over some matters involving states and the centre.
South-West as albatross
The festering crisis engendered by decision of the party to sack its South-West zonal executive and replace it with a caretaker committee remains unabated. There is threat to sue the party for removing the National Auditor, Chief Bode Mustapha and recognising the Ogun State exco, led by Chief Adebayo Dayo as the “authentic” PDP exco in the state. The PDP National Chairman, Dr Bamanga Tukur and other members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) were requested to rescind their decision within seven days or face criminal contempt. The threat letter, entitled: “Purported removal from office of the National Auditor and the dissolution of South West Zonal Executive Committee of the People’s Democratic Party,” was dated February 18, 2013 and signed by Mr Gboyega Oyewole, counsel for Chief Mustapha. It stated: “We have the instruction of our client to request for a reversal of the said decision, which should also be given adequate publicity within seven days of the date hereof failing which our client shall take further steps in protection of the pending judicial processes and the constitution of the party. It is our fervent hope that the reversal will be effected to avoid the unpleasant consequences of a proceeding in criminal contempt which will be instituted against your good self before the Court of Appeal, among several other options open to our client.”
Jonathan’s silence
Just like Obasanjo, because of the comment credited to him over the single term issue, pressure is apparently on Jonathan to clarify the matter as it is believed to be heating up the polity. Concerns are being expressed in major political circles that playing hide-and-seek with the ongoing staccatos could further escalate divisions in the polity rather than promote national integration and cohesion.
But the president’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe, has already ruled out the possibility of Jonathan giving Nigerians the opportunity to get his own true account about the contentious issue. “We wish to state categorically that this is neither the time nor the season to begin electioneering campaign or related discourse for the 2015 presidential elections and so President Goodluck Jonathan will not jump the gun. President Goodluck Jonathan will not for any reason abandon these laudable goals to engage in a distractive political debate with any individual or group of persons,” he said.
curled from tribune
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