GEJ STRUCK DEAL FOR ONE TERM WITH PDP GOVERNORS AND LEADERS IN MY PRESENCE ... I WAS PDP BOT SECRETARY .. SENATOR ADAMU “By running he is absolutely reneging on an agreement,” former Governor Abdullahi Adamu said of President Jonathan’s plan to run for president again. ——————————————— A former governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Adamu has insisted that President Goodluck Jonathan entered into agreement with the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to spend a term of four years in office. He said at a meeting with party leaders at the Conference Room of the Office of the First Lady, Presidential Villa, the President agreed not to seek re-election after conceding that it was the turn of the north to produce the president on the platform of the ruling party following the demise of former President Umaru Yar’Adua. According to him, at the meeting, which he attended in his capacity as the then Secretary of the PDP Board of Trustees, virtually all the PDP governors then were present. Mr. Adamu, currently a senator representing Nasarawa West Senatorial District, spoke as a guest onStraight Talk with Kadaria Ahmed, a popular talk-show on Channels Television. “I believe it is the right of every Nigerian within the Constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria to run for the highest office in the land,”Mr. Adamu who has since defected to the opposition All Progressive Congress, APC, said. “I cannot deny him that constitutional right. But I do know of the philosophy that it is not everything that you can do that you do. I know that as a fact. “And I was party to the incident. Our president, His Excellency Goodlcuk Jonathan was in the meeting. I was in the meeting in the Villa, in the First Lady’s Conference Room when the issue of zoning came, when the issue of whether he would be allowed to contest in the first place came. “This was after he had taken over and was completing Yar’Adua’s tenure.” Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State had last year triggered a political storm in the country when he argued that Mr. Jonathan was ineligible to contest the 2015 presidential election having allegedly agreed not to. Speaking in an interview with an independent radio station Liberty FM, Kaduna, the governor claimed the president signed a single-term pact with the PDP governors in 2011. The president and his aides however debunked the claim, saying it was a “frivolous allegation.” Mr. Adamu however said after Mr. Jonathan succeeded his late boss in May 2010 and the president was given the opportunity to contest, it was clear the presidential slot, in line with the zoning principle of the ruling PDP would return to the northern part of the country. Mr Adamu explained, “He was given the opportunity to contest and it was clear it would come back to the North because the rotation is north and south. That is the rotation essentially. “As far as PDP was concerned, Yar’Adua had the northern slot so to say and he didn’t go that distance. He, as vice president, took over which is okay. After taking over he wanted another shot. He was allowed the slot. “As a party, the party produces its candidate and before he was produced there was some caucusing. And the Caucus agreed that he should be the candidate of the party. Before the Convention, a decision is usually taken that this is the person to support, maybe one or two candidates or so. He was out there. He was an incumbent president. He defeated Atiku. And he agreed to do only one term.” Asked to name those who attended the meeting, the former governor said, “I was there. I was the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the party. The president himself was there. Some state governors were there. Samuel Ogbemudia was there. Virtually all the PDP governors were there.” Mr. Adamu said Mr. Jonathan would be violating the agreement if he decides to enter the presidential contest which holds in February next year, saying, “By running he is absolutely reneging on an agreement.” He stressed, “I am saying I was in PDP. I was part and parcel of an agreement for the power shift. I’m saying our dear president was part of that agreement.” The lawmaker said the dynamics of Nigerian politics makes the zoning of political offices necessary. “The constitution of the country does allow it. It is not for me as an individual to say to hell with the constitution,” he said. “To say to hell with power balancing in Nigeria, no politics in the world is precluded from having these forces that determine the shape of leadership or the location of leadership at any point in time.”
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 12:19:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015