A few hours after a committee composed of Northern politicians chose former Vice President Abubakar Atiku as its "consensus candidate," aides to Goodluck Jonathan accused the Nigerian media of misrepresentation in their description of Atiku as the Northern consensus candidate.
A few hours after a committee composed of Northern politicians chose former Vice President Abubakar Atiku as its "consensus candidate," aides to Goodluck Jonathan accused the Nigerian media of misrepresentation in their description of Atiku as the Northern consensus candidate.
The statement, which was signed by presidential spokesman, Ima Niboro, argued that Atiku was a candidate of fringe elements in the North within the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF).
Shortly afterward, Jonathan's political machinery also reached out to the media claiming that they were excited by the selection of Atiku. They boasted that the president’s odd of winning the nomination of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had vastly improved with the Northern group’s endorsement of Atiku.
However, Saharareporters has learned that Mr. Jonathan and his handlers are deeply jittery over Mr. Atiku’s emergence as their main challenger.
“We made a big strategic miscalculation,” a senior adviser to Jonathan told Saharareporters. “Prior to Atiku's selection, we mostly concentrated our attacks on [former military dictator Ibrahim] Babangida, almost forgetting Atiku,” he added.
But several sources within and outside the Jonathan camp have disclosed that the president and his handlers now recognize that Atiku is a much harder opponent than Babangida.
After all the braggadocio the day Atiku emerged the candidate of the Northern wing, it dawned on Jonathan that celebrating Atiku's choice might have been a major mistake.
One source told us that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was one of the first to warn Jonathan that Atiku was the most dangerous of all the four Northern politicians who were formerly in the race – Babangida, former security chief Aliyu Gusau and Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara. The source said Obasanjo chastised Jonathan for letting Atiku receive a party membership waiver earlier in the race.
Pastor Tunde Bakare & Yinka Odumakin leading an SNG Rally
After Obasanjo and other advisers warned Jonathan about Atiku’s political resilience, wide contacts across the country and strong political skills, a visibly nervous president ordered his aides to arrange a meeting with the leaders of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG). The organization had organized nationwide rallies and led the struggle to help Jonathan emerge as President when former President Umaru Yar'adua was holed up in a Saudi hospital, incommunicado for three months.
Since assuming office, Jonathan had distanced himself from the SNG operatives.
Facing the prospect of a strong challenge from the Atiku camp, President Jonathan last Monday night received the SNG leadership in Aso Rock. The SNG members, led by fiery Lagos preacher, Pastor Tunde Bakare, were invited to see Jonathan in a meeting billed as a way of reviewing his performance so far in office.
But a source told Saharareporters that the SNG delegation found a downcast Jonathan who was solely interested in talking about his presidential ambition and how to achieve by all means.
A presidential source told us that Jonathan was visibly shaky when the SNG delegation insisted on discussing the president’s performance in office. They reportedly drew Jonathan’s attention to the lawlessness perpetrated in Ogun and Bauchi, two PDP-controlled states, where two of his campaign coordinators have acted with political recklessness, violating the constitution and the rule of law.
The SNG reminded Jonathan that Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, his coordinator in the state, had refused to honor a court order re-instating the impeached deputy governor, thereby leaving the state with two deputy governors. They also remarked that Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun was working with a state assembly of minority lawmakers who had purportedly impeached the majority of their counterparts.
Rather than pledging to help restore order in the two states, Jonathan countered that Mr. Kayode Fayemi, the recently inaugurated governor of Ekiti, had arbitrarily dissolved the state’s local government councils. The SNG delegation implored Jonathan to take more interest in the illegalities perpetrated by members of his PDP across the country if he wished to set a tone for addressing the nation’s political logjam.
In an often contentious meeting, the SNG also criticized Jonathan's declaration that there was no longer any need for a Sovereign National Conference to resolve issues pertaining to Nigeria's federal structure as well as other social, economic and political crises. Jonathan admitted that he was not misquoted in his dismissal of the idea of a national conference, but told his visitors that he feared that the statement might be used against him in the future.
A source within the SNG delegation told Saharareporters that they were shocked when Jonathan launched into a lengthy criticism of the four-year. “We were bewildered to hear him say that he would prefer a one-term tenure of seven years instead.” Jonathan told the SNG that he thought it was too expensive to run elections every four years, preferring instead that both the president as well as governors should get a seven-year tenure.
Speaking about his political chances, he told the SNG delegation that he did not see how Atiku could defeat him in the primaries or how any other opponent could unseat him in the general elections. “You can't defeat an incumbent,” he said, to the shock of his guests.
When one of his guests suggested that some state governors might be deceiving him regarding his support base, Mr. Jonathan angrily retorted, “If I don't want them to sleep in their beds, they won't sleep.” Mr. Jonathan stated that, by the time anti-corruption agents checked on a few state commissioners of finance and accountants-general, the state governors would sit up. Jonathan is believed to have worked on ensuring that governorship elections come after that of the presidency, the timing implies that he would move against the governors who undermine his own ambition.
A source close to the president told us that some presidential advisers cringed to hear Mr. Jonathan open up to the SNG delegation as if he were discussing with an inner caucus of associates. Another source within the SNG said Mr. Jonathan’s off-hand comment about using law enforcement agents to hound uncooperative governors “reminded me of the kind of strategy used by President Obasanjo.”
On the economy, the SNG leadership stated that state governors were making nonsense of the banking reforms by going to borrow from banks recently bailed out with public funds in the name of raising bonds in the capital markets. Jonathan feigned ignorance to the charge.
As they left, the SNG team remarked that they would watch Jonathan’s policies, but indicated their reluctance to be drawn into a role in his presidential ambition.
As the delegates got into their cars to leave the villa, the minister of the Niger Delta, Mr. Godsday Orubebe, produced $50,000, which he described as “a token for the group’s transport costs.”
Our source said that Mr. Bakare fiercely protested against the “gift,” stating that as a man of God and conscience of the nation he would not accept bribes or any form of inducement he could not openly sign for. To avoid creating a public scene, the team drove to their hotel and then sent the $50,000 cash back to Jonathan through Tony Uranta, one of Jonathan's political operatives. Mr. Uranta was present throughout the president’s meeting with the SNG.
A source within Aso Rock said the SNG group placed a call to Jonathan's ADC to let him know they had returned the money.
Tony Uranta