Apart from reaching out to major stakeholders in the South-West, New Telegraph learnt that the presidency, through proxies, is funding the Labour Party (LP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) ahead of the 2015 presidential election.
New Telegraph learnt that the three fringe parties and some others would, by the second week of January, adopt Jonathan as their presidential candidate. Already, the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) has adopted the president as its candidate. Although Jonathan is working hard to ensure that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) mobilises enough votes for him in the South-West, the resort to the fringe parties, according to a source, is to ensure that “with adequate funding, LP, SDP and UPN will deliver some votes for President Jonathan.”
The permutation of the APC for an outright victory or forcing the presidential poll into a run-off is anchored on getting the block votes of the North- West and the South-West, the two geopolitical zones with the largest voting population in the country, which the party hopes to augment with at least 25 per cent of votes from the other geopolitical zones of the South-South, South- East, North-Central and North-East.
The calculation is based on the fact that Buhari, with his cult-like followership in the North-West will be able to deliver the zone while the support for the party by key APC chieftains, including a national leader of the party and former Lagos State Governor, Senator Bola Tinubu, will ensure massive voting for the party’s presidential candidate who also picked his running mate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) from Ogun State, from the South-West.
Therefore, whoever wins in the North-West with 18.9 million votes, and South-West between Jonathan and Buhari is sure of winning the February 14, 2015 presidential election. In the 2011 election, Jonathan polled 2,786,417 votes while Buhari garnered 321,609 votes in the six states in the South-West. But the formation of the APC, coupled with alliance between Buhari and Tinubu, has made the South-West a battleground.
With Governors Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo) and Ayodele Fayose (Ekiti) now in PDP, Jonathan is sure of winning Ondo and Ekiti states while the battleground states are Lagos, Osun, Oyo and Ogun. Lagos has the highest number of voters in the country with 6,247,845 votes. Oyo has 2,577,490 voters while Ogun and Ondo have 1,869,326 and 1,558,975 votes respectively. Osun has 1,293,967 voters while 750,753 votes are expected from Ekiti.
“We need to ensure that votes from PDP, LP, SDP and UPN are pulled together to shore up the chances of President Jonathan in the 2015. Very soon, the parties will adopt President Jonathan as their sole candidate. In turn, their activities and campaigns will be funded by the presidency,” a source familiar with the political scheming of the president and his strategists, said. It was learnt that the presidency was working hand in hand with Dr. Frederick Fasehun to ensure that the UPN mobilised votes for Jonathan in the South-West. The resuscitated UPN was founded by Fasehun.
In the SDP, the presidency is working with former governor of Ogun State, Chief Segun Osoba, who broke away from APC to join the SDP following his irreconcilable difference with Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. Osoba recently met with Jonathan at the State House, Marina, Lagos where they reportedly discussed working alliance ahead of the presidential election. SDP was founded by a former Minister of Finance and one-time joint presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Peoples Party (APP), Chief Olu Falae. Mimiko, who is LP’s arrowhead, has ditched the party for the PDP, but his surrogates are in charge of the running of the LP.
In 2011 election, LP supported Jonathan. Mimiko is the South- West Coordinator of the PDP Presidential Campaign. A source said a member of the House of Representatives and former Ekiti State governorship candidate of LP, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele, is being positioned to be the rallying point of the Jonathan’s campaign in LP. Fasehun told New Telegraph that the UPN leadership would soon meet to adopt a presidential candidate, but he declined to state who between Jonathan or Buhari his party will adopt.
He said the readiness to serve Nigerians, love for democracy and zeal to fight corruption were factors that would determine the adoption of a presidential candidate. Fasehun, who denied receiving funding from the presidency, said: “Is it why we are poor? We have no moneybags in UPN.
You remembered when we started the idea of UPN; they talked about N2.8 billion pipeline contract from the government, which has not come to me. As at now, nothing like funding from the presidency, but I don’t know what may happen after the interview with me,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday. LP National Secretary, Mr. Kayode Ajulo, confirmed to New Telegraph that Jonathan is reaching out to the party. He said: “Certainly, our voice will count in choosing the next president for Nigeria.
We are the beautiful bride in Nigerian politics; we are being wooed by President Jonathan’s PDP and General Buhari’s APC as well as other presidential hopefuls. “We will do the needful, we shall do the desirable, we are accountable to the people and we shall reflect their aspiration in our decision, which will be made known at the appropriate time.”
Ajulo denied the claim that the presidency is funding LP, saying: “In politics, people will continue to insinuate. To the best of my knowledge, nobody is funding us. We pay our bills. The National Chairman, Alhaji Salam Baraden Paiko, a chieftain of NULGE, is a contended man. All of us in LP have something doing; we can pay our bills. “So, no presidency is funding us.
While some parties have adopted the president, did you see Labour Party doing that? We are not in a hurry.” Ajulo justified why LP is not fielding presidential candidate in 2015. “This is not an oversight but part of our strategies and principles as a socialist and realist. If we must field a presidential candidate, we must field the candidate to win and not to merely participate in the election as some parties are doing. “Our conditions hinged on our principles and ideas must be met for anyone to be our presidential candidate; it is more of feasibility test of which those that approached us failed.
“As it is, what we would do is to set up a committee that will scrutinise all the presidential candidates as presented by other political parties and make recommendations to the leadership of the party on the candidate to endorse,” he stated. Text messages sent to Falae and Osoba were not responded to. As part of efforts to consolidate support for the Jonathan’s candidacy, the Presidency recently facilitated rapprochement between Mimiko and Fayose, making it possible for the duo to now work to ensure victory for the party. As part of the efforts to enhance the president’s chances in the South-West, a source told New Telegraph that the PDP leadership is being prevailed upon not to rock the boat in Ogun State.
“The party is being cautious in moving against Buruji Kashamu in Ogun State as this won’t be palatable for the PDP. So, the party will tolerate the excesses of Buruji for the purposes of the election,” the source said. According to plan, Mimiko and Fayose are to work with other party leaders in the South-West to deliver the zone to the president.
But another source said the PDP was still having challenges in Lagos State as Jonathan’s strategists believe that the structures of the party in the state are not strong enough to deliver Lagos to Jonathan. The recent defeat of the immediate past Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, at the governorship primaries, also altered permutations in the state. Obanikoro had given assurances that he would deliver the state for the PDP.
According to another source, the party is now counting on former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George, and other ethnic nationalities to mobilise support for Jonathan in Lagos. In Oyo State, Jonathan’s foot soldiers are reaching out to former Governors Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao-Akala to support the president in the election. Ladoja is contesting the governorship on the platform of Accord Party while Alao-Akala has abandoned the PDP for LP where he is the governorship candidate.
Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ms Jumoke Akinjide, is the arrowhead of the president’s team in the state. In Osun, governorship candidate of the party in the August 9 election, Senator Iyiola Omisore and Minister of Police Affairs, Alhaji Jelili Adesiyan, are being empowered to match the APC in the presidential election. But the APC said it is not bothered by the PDP plan. National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, told New Telegraph that the party was confident of victory in the 2015 elections. “Whether they want to divide themselves to PDP, LP, UPN and SDP is immaterial to us. What is important are the people. And I can assure you that the people are with us.
“We are not bothered by the PDP plot to capture, in their language, South- West. While they can manufacture figures they can’t manufacture people. As long as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agencies are neutral, we are comfortable of a resounding win in the South-West and all over Nigeria in 2015,” he said.
Source: New Telegraph
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