Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, x-rays the calls on President Goodluck Jonathan by his supporters to formally declare for second term and the chances of his re-election in 2015.
By the close of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) meeting in Calabar, Cross River State, on Tuesday, August 5, it had become apparent that the process for the actualisation of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election had tacitly been put in place. All that is now needed is for the president to officially make a declaration that would hardly come to many as a surprise when he does.
President Goodluck Jonathan
Jonathan, remarkably, has not come up with a categorical statement on his much talked about 2015 re-election aspiration. In fact, on occasions when he had been asked to comment on his second term ambition, he had parried the question.
Even in his latest media outing when the issue came up, he had lectured the journalist that had asked the question that what was of more concern to him and his administration was how to ensure security of lives and property for Nigerians. His immediate agenda, he swore, was to get rid of the security challenge in the land, especially Boko Haram menace that has torn through some states in the North and Abuja.
But while the president labours to sell the dummy of not urgently having an eye on return, his foot soldiers have been on all fronts, putting up appearances and platforms that give clear indications that he is deeply involved in the re-election project. Among the efforts in this regard are newspaper advertorials and television jingles celebrating the efforts of his administration in repositioning the country.
However, what seemed to be the most frontal advance in the Jonathan re-election project was the Calabar intervention by Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Tony Anenih, last Tuesday, August 5.
Anenih had, at the meeting, emphasised that Jonathan would contest the 2015 presidential election on the party’s platform. The meeting was called by the national chairman of the party, Ahmadu Mu’azu, as part of his zonal tour of the South South geopolitical zone.
Anenih said: “I want the national chairman to go home with a word from me that, come 2015, Jonathan will run for presidency for a second term.”
Endorsement from South South
Party leaders from the zone, led by their governors, also endorsed the president for a second term. In a communiqué read at the end of the meeting by the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chibudom Nwuche, the PDP chieftains hinged their endorsement of the president on the giant strides recorded by his administration across all sectors.
The communique read in part: “We acknowledge the giant strides of the president in the area of education, agriculture, health, tourism, re-invention of the railway systems, roads and other infrastructural development across the country. It is also notable that there is tremendous focus on economic empowerment of Nigerians.
“In view of his (president) doggedness in pursuing his transformation agenda for Nigeria, the South south is in full support of President Jonathan’s administration. We, therefore, endorse him for the forthcoming 2015 presidential election, for him to continue his transformation agenda which transcends across all spheres of our lives.”
The communique was signed by Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Seriake Dickson (Bayelsa), Liyel Imoke (Cross River) and Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta).
Anenih jumps into the ring
The endorsement by the governors was not unexpected. In fact, early last month, PDP governors, in league with the party’s caucus in the National Assembly had given their nod to the agenda. Even then, it was the emphatic intervention by Anenih that seemed to have given the project enormous weight.
This is not without reasons. The former Works Minister is not known for shooting his arrows straight. But he seems to have a way of commandeering and dominating his environment. What particularly baffles many is that he has a way of initiating and sustaining projects – in most cases controversial, even without appearing so. For example, in 2001, barely two years into former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s first term, Anenih had pioneered the controversial slogan, No vacancy in Aso Rock in 2003. His statement, which was seriously criticised by perceptive minds, was seen as eventually providing the platform for massive rigging that characterised the 2003 presidential election.
He returned with the odious refrain in 2011, where he indicated that the PDP had concluded plans to give the party’s ticket and subsequent victory in the polls to Jonathan.
Thus, taken from this uncanny antecedent, Anenih’s endorsement of the president is being seen as veiled assurance to him that the party’s ticket for the 2015 polls is for his grabs.
The scheme incidentally began to take form last year. Early in September 2013, for instance, when the PDP BoT chairman conceded that aggrieved members of the party who staged a walk-out at its August 31 mini-convention had good grounds for their action, many had taken the statement from different standpoints. Casual interpreters had read in the outing a detour from his trademark bohemian political tendencies.
Enlightened analysts had, however, seen in the unusual dovish stance a decoy by the old war horse to humour the chieftains of the splinter group, before going for a kill.
Anenih had then said: “I believe some of them have genuine grievances, but I hope that once the grievances are addressed, they will come back.”
Aside the statement, he also sold impressions of working to fix the schism in the party, then. But even as he made the postures, there were insinuations that he was merely testing the waters; in fact, weighing the dimension of the impasse before throwing his support to the side that would appear to have an upper hand.
Blowing the whistle on 2015 poll
Anenih eventually took a position, expectedly, with Jonathan. But even before the current turn of events, it was apparent that the spade work had been made for Jonathan to take another shot at the job. TheNiche, for instance, learnt that a definite stance was taken on the matter by the party’s National Assembly members at a meeting with the governors on Monday, July 15. Those said to have attended the meeting included Governors Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Dickson (Bayelsa), Sullivan Chime (Enugu), Theodore Orji (Abia), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Martin Elechi (Ebonyi) and Uduaghan (Delta).
Others were Idris Wada (Kogi), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Seidu Dakingari (Kebbi), Ibrahim Dakwambo (Gombe), Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), Ibrahim Shema (Katsina) and the Deputy Governor of Sokoto State, Mukhtar Shagari.
Jonathan, it was learnt, did not exhibit overt excitement at his endorsement. Certain developments in the land, however, point to his re-election team being on the ground for the attainment of the goal.
Sources disclosed that while his campaign team roars into action, the president has been holding strategy meetings, making consultations on when to officially announce his intention. It had earlier been speculated that he would be making the declaration after the recently concluded Edel-Fitri Muslim fasting period. The idea was that, by then, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party would summon a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting to approve the guidelines for the presidential, governorship and legislative elections.
Engaging the international community
Our reporter, however, learnt that the earlier arrangement had to be rescheduled for the president to sound out critical stakeholders that he needed to carry along in making public his intention. This consideration, it was learnt, informed his recent trip abroad, where, apart from attending the African Summit meeting with other presidents in the continent, he held sessions with United States of America (U.S.A.) President, Barack Obama. Part of his agenda, it was gathered, was to let his foreign audience understand the complex social make-up of Nigeria, and that his running in 2015 is in their best interest and that of the Nigerian nation. The opposition had created the impression before the international community that Jonathan was rudderless and incapable of taking proactive initiatives that can help contain the growing insecurity in the land.
What was seen to have emboldened the president in this direction was the relative success of the move by his administration recently, in coming up with a proactive approach in dealing with the cause of Boko Haram insurgency.
Government had recently inaugurated Victims Support Funds Committee chaired by Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd.), to raise funds for the support of terror victims. At a fund-raising dinner by the committee on Thursday, July 31, over N80 billion was realised.
The president, who personally served as the compere at the occasion, led the donors by donating N10 billion on behalf of the federal government.
He called on Nigerians to contribute their widow’s mite in his administration’s efforts at providing succour to victims of Boko Haram attacks, noting that it was a great privilege to give to those in distress, as the givers could have as well been the victims.
He said his administration would not rest on its oars until the terrorists are completely routed and wiped out of the country.
“For those who have been victims, they need comfort. They need succour. We cannot replace the life of a child that has been snuffed out. We cannot replace the lives of men and women who have been killed. We cannot return broken limbs to their original state. We cannot take away the trauma that people have been put through.
“Their memories are scarred; some for the rest of their lives, over what they knew nothing about. The best we can do in this circumstance is to offer them a shoulder to lean on and to stretch out our hands of fellowship to them and tell them we feel their pains and share in their sorrow,” the president had said.
That moving speech and the very action of initiating and actualising the fund-raising agenda, TheNiche learnt, has raised the president’s rating in the eye of the international community.
A senior official in his media team, who spoke off record, did not entirely agree that the initiative was intended to convince the global audience that Jonathan would do better in his second term. He, however, admitted that in politics, anything that would confer advantage to one over his opponent is usually carried along.
“It will be completely out of tune to suggest that the fund-raising exercise was to hoodwink the world that the president would do better if given another term. That would amount to simplifying the weighty issue of the Boko Haram scourge that has seen the loss of many lives and destruction of property in the country. I am not sure that the president sees his second term as a do-or-die affair. This is, however, not to take away the fact that the fund-raising exercise and other related activities cannot count in his favour if he decides to seek a second term. In politics, anything that can confer advantage over your opponent is always carried along,” he said.
According to the presidential aide, everything has almost been put in place for the president to make his formal declaration, stressing that “as soon as he does that, all actions would be geared at ensuring that he coasts home to victory at party level and the main election”.
How far can Jonathan go?
While Jonathan’s cheer men seem to be on victory lap, even before the PDP presidential primaries and the 2015 election, there are indications that the journey may not be smooth for him, after all. This newspaper had, for example, exclusively reported that with enthusiastic recruits from the South, the groundswell of opposition against the president by the triad of Northern leaders – political, religious and traditional – may make it hard for him to win the ballot, even if he gets the PDP ticket. Part of the plot against him, our reporter gathered, would be to stop him through the courts. The argument would be that having served out Umaru Yar’Adua’s term when he died and having contested for and won an election as a president, he would have exhausted his constitutional two terms in office.
Aside this weighty consideration is what analysts see as a robust challenge from Sule Lamido, Jigawa State governor, who seems set for a battle with the president over PDP ticket. The media were awash penultimate week with audacious moves by the Jigawa governor for the top job. There were, for instance, reports of Lamido unofficially launching his bid for Aso Rock, with branded campaign vehicles spotted in his state proclaiming his readiness to run. Posters bearing his name and picture proclaiming his ambition were also spotted in Kaduna State.
Lamido’s Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Umar Kyari, had earlier explained that he was “yet to make any formal declaration” and that the “posters were printed by people who probably want the governor to contest for the 2015 presidential election”.
The governor’s adventure is, however, not coming to many as a surprise. Twice in recent time, Obasanjo had publicly tipped him for president.
Making a veiled reference to Jonathan on May 29, 2013, Obasanjo said: “You know you can help somebody to get a job, but you cannot help him to do it.”
But in apparent support for his choice, he added: “If somebody cannot do the job, we have Sule Lamido who is competent to do the job.
“Some people are saying one person can’t make changes; this is rubbish. If you have a competent person who knows where he is going, he can make changes along with his team that would impact the lives of people as we have seen it in Jigawa State.”
Obasanjo, who played key role in Jonathan’s political ascendancy from his days as Bayelsa State Deputy Governor through to governor to vice president, acting president and his present status, has, of late, not been in the best of terms with the president. There are thus, fears that with the former president’s tendency not on the same page with Jonathan, his second term project may not be as easy as his henchmen think, even if he expectedly accedes to their request to take the plunge.
