Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, writes on the endorsement on President Goodluck Jonathan by PDP governors, National Assembly legislators and other interest bodies, x-raying the likely impact of the action on the party’s presidential primary
President Goodluck Jonathan
The special national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on April 20, 2009, presented a paradox of sorts.
Appearing detached from the euphoria of the moment, the then President, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, had sold the impression of repositioning the party on the path of democracy and standard practice. A typical Nigerian politician utterly groomed in the act of subterfuge, he had taken a look at the coterie of hangers-on and other obviously rented cheer men at the Eagle Square, Abuja, venue of the show, brandishing banners and fliers, seeking his conscription into the 2011 presidential election.
Some of the posters roared with inscriptions: “Support Continuity”, “With Yar’Adua, the future is brighter”. While the showmen entertained themselves, to the amusement of other PDP chieftains, Yar’Adua had painted a picture of indifference to their frenzy.
Not done with a posture of apathy to the rowdy displays, when it was his time to address the audience, he cut the image of a local headmaster calling his rancorous pupils to order. Yar’Adua pointedly told his party men that the clamour for 2011 when the government was hardly two years in office amounted to a grave disservice to the Nigerian electorate. He urged them to concentrate on the delivery of service to the people.
That singular declaration greatly endeared him to even his critics who had hitherto dismissed him as not having control over the party. Elsewhere, foot soldiers of the administration literally went berserk beating their chest that the president had finally arrived.
But beneath Yar’Adua’s tough posture was a huge dummy sold to unsuspecting Nigerians. While, for instance, he admonished his party men to exercise restraint in going about their individual ambitions, the Presidency, which he headed, was assiduously working for his re-election in 2011. Part of his strategy was the re-invigouration of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), the fabled political machine of his elder brother, the late Shehu Yar’Adua, to oil the campaign machinery. Yar’Adua, incidentally, could not actualise the agenda – he died barely a year after. But a bold statement had been made in the politics of duplicity that seems to have become the norm in the land.
Seven months ahead 2015 general elections, similar script is being acted by different players, but in dissimilar style in the current dispensation.
According to a timetable by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last year, the presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for February 14, 2015. The commission also fixed House of Assembly and governorship elections for February 28, same year. The statement was signed by the Secretary of the Commission, Mrs. Augusta Ogakwu, who said the release was done in pursuant of the powers conferred on the commission by the constitution and the Electoral Act (2010) as amended.
The statement was, however, silent on when politicians could declare their interest in contesting any of the offices.
The Electoral Act 2010, Section 31 (1) states: “Every political party shall not, later than 60 days before the date appointed for the general election under the provisions of this Act, submit to the Commission in the prescribed forms list of the candidates the party proposes to sponsor at the elections.”
Politicians with eyes on various offices have hidden under this directive to restrain themselves from embarking on open campaign, choosing, rather, to do so in different guises and strategies.
In the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), names of former Military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari; former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar; Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; have regularly popped up. Lately, Publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Sam Nda-Isaiah, has joined the fray. In fact, Nda-Isaiah and Kwankwaso appear to be more overt in flaunting their ambition, though there are indications that Buhari and Atiku are not leaving anything to chance.
Contending with the Lamido challenge
The heat, however, is felt more from the PDP where President Goodluck Jonathan and Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, seem set for a battle over the ticket. The media was awash last 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 Jigawa 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, former President Olusegun 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.” Not a few believe that Jonathan rode on Obasanjo’s back to Aso Rock.
Doing a pitch 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 also spoke up for the governor on May 12 this year, saying: “Going by Lamido’s background, performance and credibility, his competence and exposure, he can stand shoulder to shoulder with anybody in the country.”
Jonathan’s men on rampage
Proteges of the president are, however, not taking the Lamido challenge lightly. In obvious attempt at pulling the rug off the feet of the Jigawa governor, Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio, on July 15, announced that the party’s House of Representatives caucus had endorsed Jonathan for 2015.
According to Akpabio, who is the chairman of PDP Governors Forum (PDPGF), PDP governors were present when the legislators took their action.
“I do not want to pre-empt the action of PDP governors, but I can attest to their loyalty and their commitment to the success of Mr. President come 2015,” he said.
The curious endorsement, TheNiche learnt, was the outcome of a meeting between the president and the PDP governors led by Akpabio with the PDP members of the House of Representatives.
Those said to have attended the meeting included Governors Seriake Dickson (Bayelsa), Sullivan Chime (Enugu), Theodore Orji (Abia), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Martin Elechi (Ebonyi) and Emmanuel 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 had earlier been speculated, would be officially declaring for his second term in office after the Muslim fasting period, specifically any time in August. 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, as well as national and state legislature elections.
Like Yar’Adua, like Jonathan
As in the Yar’Adua scenario, 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. Aside orchestrated media jingles advertising the strides of his administration, groups that are suspected to have the blessing of the government have been trying to outdo one another in endorsing him for another term.
Supposedly opposition parties are not left out in the campaign. All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) had in 2011 not fielded any presidential candidate because of its understanding with Jonathan. In the run up to 2015, there are no indications of the party going against the trend. If anything, some of its key figures are even making open endorsement of the president.
The same tendency prevails in Labour Party (LP). Some weeks ago, the party’s Ogun State chapter had endorsed the president, pledging to work tirelessly for his victory in his re- election bid. The party, in fact, urged him to declare his interest immediately to contest the 2015 presidential election.
Secretary of Ogun LP, Sunday Oginni, explained in Abeokuta that the party’s support for Jonathan would be total, stressing that it would be in the interest of the country if the president “re-contests for a second term to enable him complete his unfinished works”.
“We (LP supporters) have the freedom to support any candidate and, to us, the best president Nigeria has ever had is President Jonathan; so we will support and endorse him for 2015,” he assured.
Ogun chapter of PDP, toeing the line of some other states, made open endorsement on Jonathan’s candidacy for a second term.
Endorsement, according to experts, is a normal culture in a democracy. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, defines political endorsement as “the action of publicly declaring one’s personal or group’s support of a candidate for elected office”. The action, political scientists argue, is usually based on the candidate’s pedigree or what he is considered to represent. It is, ideally, not procured nor borne out of sycophancy or coercion.
In Nigeria and other developing countries, however, the fear among those kicking against the option is that if not well handled, it has the tendency of working against the growth of democracy. They also see it as having the potential of stifling opposition and, in the process, creating room for dictatorship.
Burden of undemocratic endorsements
Nigeria, incidentally, has a sad history of such undemocratic kites being flown in the past before the real onslaught on the people.
In the botched tenure elongation project of the Obasanjo civilian administration, for instance, a theory of regime continuity to consolidate the alleged gains of the government was sold to Nigerians. While the controversy it generated thickened, Obasanjo chose to dance on the topic with a nauseating insistence that he would not do anything that was unconstitutional. It took sheer determination and unity of purpose by Nigerians to halt the project when it had almost blossomed. Earlier in the life of the Obasanjo administration, an amorphous group, the Movement for National Consensus (MONACO), facilitated by Senator Arthur Nzeribe, who had carved an image for himself on account of his maverick tendencies, had come up with an idea of endorsing the retired Army General for a second term, even when he was barely some months in office. Nzeribe had then anchored his bizarre agenda on his claims that it was only Obasanjo that could sustain the country’s unity.
In fact, before the onset of the present civilian dispensation, the intrigues that eventually snowballed into the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections had commenced with odious demands by a nondescript organisation, Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), headed by Nzeribe, on the then military president, Ibrahim Babangida, to extend the political transition timetable of his government. Nzeribe and his cohorts were initially ignored by Nigerians as mere rabble-rousers. By the time the enormity of their antics had been appreciated, they had procured a controversial midnight court injunction that Babangida latched on to annul the election.
The same trend by the same Nzeribe re-appeared in the succeeding Abacha regime in which the late goggled General was sold the option of transforming to a civilian president. The scheme, which originally seemed innocuous, almost sailed through when the then five political parties that had adopted Abacha as their sole presidential candidate had commenced with endorsing him as their presidential aspirant before his final adoption.
Abacha was to have consummated the controversial offer before he dropped dead on Monday, June 8, 1998.
While the obviously government engineered endorsement/adoption train roared its way, other Nigerians that had intentions of running for the presidency were hushed out of contention.
“That is the danger of unprincipled endorsement. This is our fear with what Jonathan’s henchmen are doing. If they are allowed to have their way, the primaries of the party at all levels would be mere charade – a mere assemblage of hapless members to give a stamp of authority to their unprincipled action,” lamented Ismail Abbas, a public affairs analyst, in a chat with our correspondent.
Ikechi Onyema, a lawyer, explained that there is nothing wrong in any one being endorsed by his party or admirers, adding, however, that the exercise should be carried out in such a way that it does not infringe on other people’s rights.
The fear many entertain on the move by PDP governors and legislators is that it may be targeted at shutting off opponents of the president during the party’s primaries. It is also seen as a gesture being extended to Jonathan with an eye on reciprocation. First term governors on the ticket of the party are expected to go for second term. Some of those on second term are also known to nurse interest in other positions, especially the Senate. In similar stead, the lawmakers also seek return to their positions or higher offices. TheNiche gathered that it is this drive for their personal ambition that basically informs their endorsement on Jonathan.
