2015: ‘Why North Won’t Vote Jonathan’. As the 2015 general election gathers momentum, President Goodluck Jonathan and his strategists are working round the clock to woo the North to support the President’s re-election bid, particularly the North-West geo-political zone. But while northern governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), chieftains of the party and some other stakeholders from the zone have endorsed President Jonathan as the party’s candidate for the 2015 presidential election, credible northern sources have described the endorsement as an exercise that cannot translate to victory for the President. The sources observed that while the North and the South-South had worked as political allies for decades, the age long romance ended with the nonsense Jonathan’s election in 2011 and his current re-election bid have made of the zoning principle after the death of former President Umar Musa Yar’adua. A prominent northern leader who pleaded anonymity said in respect of the broken alliance: “Ordinarily, it would be in order if the North supports a South-South person to become the president of Nigeria. Where things went wrong was the death of Umaru Musa Yar’adua and what came up later. “Jonathan emerged not because the constitution gave him the mandate to emerge. Even if the constitution gave him the mandate, there was a new kind of atmosphere of political propaganda, mischief and mudslinging against the North and Northerners, whereby things were made to look as if the North had been edged out of power and now the South-South is in charge and anybody can go to hell. “That created a situation whereby the decades of good relationship between the South-South and the North was brought to an end.” The source added: “There are lots of things Jonathan has done for the North. He has appointed Northerners into positions more than any other president in this country. But most of the appointees who were expected to use their positions to help Jonathan and his government, have not been able to do so. “Most of the people he has appointed are simply serving themselves. They do not come here in the North to campaign for Jonathan. “Remember that many governors and other politicians from the North went to Abuja to endorse Jonathan and they were there clapping for him. But even in Kaduna, one of the states where the governor and other political office holders have endorsed Jonathan, you would not find Jonathan’s poster on any house. “So, if in Kaduna State where the Vice President comes from and the PDP has been ruling since 1999, nobody can take the risk of pasting Jonathan’s poster on his house, then you can see the hypocrisy in the kind of people we want to adopt. “If the governors adopted you, what of the people in the state? Have they also adopted you? Yet you can hardly find a state in the north where Jonathan has not appointed somebody to a prominent position. The Immigration, Customs and Prisons services are all being led by Northerners. Although the heads of the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeal are there on merit, they are actually from the north. “Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are led by northerners and you can also see northerners occupying prominent position in Jonathan’s cabinet. So, his thinking that the people he appointed will be able to mobilise people to support him has not actually worked.” The source added that Jonathan has made a number of enemies in the North who are opposed to him for various reasons. He said: “Some are opposed to him because he violated the principle of rotational presidency by his insistence on contesting the presidential election. There are also those who are opposed to him because they have not gained anything from his government. “There are those who are opposed to him because they see his government as clearly incompetent and corrupt, condoning corrupt people and incompetent in terms of handling issues of security, economy and even the whole idea of governance. And there are others who are opposed to him because he came from the southern part of Nigeria and those who are opposed to him without any reason.” Human rights activist Mallam Shehu Sanni, noted that the President has spent all his time appeasing the northern oligarchy and the northern political establishment who simply want power for themselves. The President, he added, had failed to identify himself with the progressives in the North. Sanni said: “Instead of talking to people like Balarabe Musa, Col. Dangiwa Umar and other progressive elements in the north, he prefers to reach out to Emirs. The Northern bourgeoisie and political establishment have already made up their minds and there is nothing he can do about it. “Again, Jonathan shot himself in the foot when he allowed the South West to align itself with the North. The South West supported him to become the President in 2011, but his people engineered him to turn against them. “His government was run without any prominent position held by the Yoruba, and he ended up fighting even with popular governors and popular political leaders who have roots in the South West political history and establishment. He ended up allowing his own forces to unite against him.” He reasoned that the 2015 election would be a battle between Jonathan’s South South region and the other parts of Nigeria, particularly the North and the South West, adding eight out of every 10 people in the North are against Jonathan. He added: “The worst of all it is that formerly, he had the strong support of northern minority Christians, but since 2011, they have not seen any significant change in their lives. Jonathan may not be directly responsible for this but the people who were brought in from that zone to represent his government. “So, what Jonathan has done is eliminating his friends and making it possible for them to join his enemy to form a force against him. And this is what he is going to confront in 2015.” In his own comments, former Chairman of Conference of Nigerian Political Parties and ex-governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, wondered what Jonathan had done to convince Nigerians to vote for him. He said that while it is true that he inherited the problem of insurgency, it is also true that he elected to address the problem and record more achievements than his predecessors. “But he has not been able to correct anything, yet there is a criminal campaign for people to vote for him,” he said. Citing the example of the illegal movement of the sums of $9.3 million and another $5.7 million seized from the country by the South African government, Balarabe wondered which other country a thing like that could happen and the President would not have been subjected to a commission of inquiry. He said: “In fact, the action alone would have forced him to resign. In most civilised countries, the act of illegal transfer of money for the illegal purchase of arms would have resulted in the resignation of the President or his impeachment. But in Nigeria, nobody is even thinking about it. “Jonathan is the President, so he is god on earth. His actions cannot be questioned or punished. Is this a desirable President for any country? Let us be honest with ourselves.” Daily Post.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 19:17:12 +0000
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