2015: Is Sambo Jonathan’s albatross in the North? LEON USIGBE writes on the question of the suitability of Vice President Namadi Sambo on the 2015 presidential election ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should President Goodluck Jonathan decide to contest. HAJIA Binta Kuraye may not ring a bell in the ears of most political pundits outside her home state, Katsina but as the president of the Northern Women Peace Forum (NWPF), when she airs her opinion on that platform, those who know her will not be totally unjustified to attach a measure of importance to her position. A few days ago, she was quoted in a number of national dailies warning about the perceived continued unpopularity of President Goodluck Jonathan in the North-West, which she blamed, in the main, on the failure of Vice President Namadi Sambo and the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the zone. She acknowledged that the Jonathan administration had recorded significant achievements in the zone but that did not seem to gel with the population because they had been alienated by those they had chosen to lead them. Binta argued that the PDP leaders in the zone were selfish, self-conceited and completely out of sync with the grassroots. She therefore wanted the leadership to be completely replaced with people, who she said, should be sincere, have commitment and are capable of delivering the votes to the party. In an extreme display of her lack of confidence in Sambo, the political leader of the zone, she went further to advise that when President Jonathan makes up his mind to declare for the 2015 presidential election, he should do so for himself alone without naming his running mate or he will lose the votes of the North-West. Hear her: “If the president wants to declare, he should declare alone; he should not declare with anybody, else he runs the risk of losing the North-West. We have serious problem of leadership in the North-West. I am appealing to the president to change the leadership now or risk losing his second term ambition. If he wants a smooth sail in 2015 in the North-west, the president is to disengage the present crop of leaders and bring on board new breed of politicians, particularly in the PDP. “The people of the zone are not happy with the presidency because their leaders have not represented the president and Federal Government well in their various localities. They only come to seek favour from the presidency and juicy appointments and after that refuse to allow the goodies to trickle down to the grass root people, who will eventually vote during the election. “I can tell you that the people of the zone are crying for good leadership. It is evident that only the governors in the zone are doing well. I see danger ahead if nothing is done now to change this leadership before the 2015 general election,’’ she claimed. As in most cases with elected and appointed political office holders, Binta’s assertion can hardly be faulted because politicians tend to be blinded to the sensitivities of the electorate when they assume office. But in terms of the presidential election, the North-West, as critical as it is in the configuration of all national elections, has proved to be a nagging headache for Jonathan and it is unlikely to change even in 2015. That is why Binta’s linkage of Sambo to the dwindling fortunes of the PDP in the zone would be seen by some pundits as way off the mark. In 2011, when Sambo was seemingly a popular vice presidential candidate, the PDP could not win a single state in the zone in the election even though the party captured most of the gubernatorial positions. In Katsina State, Jonathan mustered 424,587 votes to Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) 1,154,000; in Kebbi, it was Jonathan 369,198 and Buhari 501,453; in Jigawa 414,000 persons voted for Jonathan and 663,063 for Buhari; in Kaduna, Sambo’s home state, Jonathan managed 1,190,179 votes to Buhari’s 1,334,244. The story was the same in Kano, where Jonathan polled 440,656 votes to Buhari’s 1,624,543; in Sokoto, it was the president 309,057 votes and the challenger 540,769 and in Zamfara Jonathan secured 238,980 to Buhari’s 624,515. What this confirms is that the North-West is not Jonathan’s forte. He won the 2011 presidential election mainly on the strength of the aggregate support of the rest of the country. Even though he has done everything to curry their favour with the 2015 presidential election ostensibly behind his mind, he would still find the North-West, a zone intent on having a home-grown president, a hard nut to crack. While the leadership of the PDP in the zone may have failed to carry the party members along, Binta cannot therefore be right to attribute President Jonathan’s unpopularity to the presence of Vice Sambo on the presidential ticket. Sambo appears important to the success of the administration thus far, coordinating many of its critical intervention programmes. In fact, some suggest that in the history of the Nigerian presidency, Sambo has enjoyed more responsibilities than any other vice president, consistently overseeing among others, the successful revitalisation and privatisation of the power sector, effective debt management and the creation of small and medium scale enterprises in the country with concomitant creation of employment opportunities. The amount of responsibility on his shoulders is a measure of the confidence Jonathan has in him and observers do not believe that Jonathan would be swayed by arguments such as Binta’s as the vice president apparently continues to enjoy a high level of confidence. tribune.ng/quicklinkss/politics/item/15604-2015-is-sambo-jonathan-s-albatross-in-the-north
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 15:16:05 +0000
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