Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo, who saw to the nomination of President Goodluck Jonathan
as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in 2011, may have
kept a distance away from groups advocating for Jonathan to run for a second
term in 2015, checks by Sunday Trust have revealed.
Sunday Trust learnt that the former president
is disenchanted with many political and administrative steps taken by President
Jonathan and that may have prompted his decision to thrown in the towel as the
Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees. Apart from resigning as the BOT chair,
Obasanjo was absent at the recent Council of States meeting held in the
Presidential Villa on June 11, 2012, which discussed strategies for tackling
the insecurity in the country. Also absent at the meeting were former President
Ibrahim Babangida and former Head of State Muhammadu Buhari.
Already, a bloc is emerging in the PDP which
tend to have the support of Obasanjo. Members of the bloc include governors who
may take a shot at the Presidency in 2015, and they include Governor Sule
Lamido of Jigawa State, Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State, Governor
Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State and Governor Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State.
None of these governors, who are known associates of Obasanjo, will run for a
second term, and have been engaged in subtle moves to contest for the PDP
presidential ticket in 2015.
One associate of Obasanjo and former Governor
of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has declared that the 2015
Presidency is for the North. According to the senator, who was Obasanjo’s
secretary in the BOT, “the PDP has no choice but to give the presidency to the
North in 2015. I believe that everybody is saying the same thing – a northern
president for 2015; I believe that the north should have a crack at it again. I
believe that it is no sin... Take it or leave it, the country is divided; it is
North and South. This is a fact; it’s either North or South.”
This statement by Senator Adamu is in
consonance with what a former minister in Obasanjo’s cabinet told our
reporter last night. Though he didn’t want to be quoted, he revealed that,
“Obasanjo is not involved in any campaign for Jonathan for 2015. Rather, what
we have is that those of us who worked with him during his years as President
have begun to regroup to form a new power bloc within the PDP. As you can see,
even many serving governors don’t tend to agree with Jonathan, and may not
support his re-election. Obasanjo is disposed toward a president from the
North, and there are several possible candidates. From the South-South, he is
likely to support Governor Godswill Akpabio as Vice President. A clear picture
of the situation will emerge by the middle of 2013. But you’ll realise from
Obasanjo’s recent comments on several issues that he’s not on the same page
with the president.”
In an interview published by Sunday Trust on
September 2, 2012, Obasanjo had made allusion to the clear division in the
country, and his discontent with the squandering of money he left in the
foreign reserve. He said, “When I came in 1999, we only had $3.7 billion in our
foreign reserve. And we were paying $3 billion yearly to manage the debt of
about $35 billion. By the time we left in 2007, we had over $45 billion in
foreign reserve while the total debt left behind was less than $3 billion. We
also saved $25 billion in what we called Excess Crude Account for the rainy
day. And when we left, they said the rain had come. They spent the money.”
Also, Obasanjo declared his opposition to the
ongoing plans by the Jonathan administration to introduce N5,000 note when he
lamented that the move would hike the cost of production for the manufacturing
sector. Previously, he would have reserved his position and, perhaps, made his
discontent known to Jonathan personally.
Recently, the Peoples Democratic Movement
(PDM), a political organisation in which Obasanjo, the late Shehu Yar’adua, and
former Vice President Atiku Abubakar belonged was resuscitated. Sunday Trust
learnt that its structure would become an alternative to the PDP if the
emerging bloc in the ruling party is shoved aside.
In spite of this political development, some
elements in the South-South have insisted that President Jonathan must seek
re-election in 2015.
Culled from Daily Trust
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