2015: JONATHAN’S MEN FIGHT BACK AT GOVERNORS

Judging from the recent outbursts by some agents of the Federal Government, it appears the battle line between the Presidency and the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) has finally been drawn.

This is happening when there seems to be high-level conspiracy in the Governors’ Forum against President Goodluck Jonathan, particularly as it is becoming clearer that the President is likely going to seek for a return ticket when the whistle for the 2015 presidential race which is just few years away is blown.

Some of Jonathan’s men who would not want their principal rubbished before the 2015 presidential election agenda sets in proper include the Minister of the Niger Delta, Elder Godsday Orubebe, the Presidential Adviser on Politics, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, the Special Adviser on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Kingsley Kuku, among others.

Of course, some governors by their utterances are not prepared to abandon Jonathan no matter what happens.

Last week, Orubebe descended on the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, accusing him of diverting the “huge” resources accruable to the state to “bribing the rest of Nigerians because of his interest to become the Vice President in 2015.”

Orubebe’s direct attack on Amaechi who is also the Chairman of the NGF, has been viewed by many Nigerians as finding a way to fight back on some of the governors who are presently constituting a possible hindrance to Jonathan’s desire to have an easy ride to his second term dream.

Stories have been making the round that Amaechi is working round the clock to woo the northern political leaders, especially his colleagues in the NGF to secure their support for the Vice Presidency in the next election.

Recently, too, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo was reported to have expressed desire to have Amaechi pair as a running mate to the Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido in the 2015 presidential election.

Giving the phenomenal influence of Obasanjo in the country’s politics in recent times, the Presidency did not take such expression with kids’ glove which explains why Jonathan’s foot soldiers decided to take it personal by hitting back at any perceived or real enemy of the President’s interest.

Just few days after Orubebe’s vituperations, another presidential aide, Dr. Gulak accused the governors of turning their states to personal estates with some of them running the affairs of such states from outside the shores of the country, thereby wasting the resources accruing to them for development.

Gulak hinged his attack on the northern governors, which observers admit that the accusation might have been the aftermath of the Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu’s sudden interest in the presidential race.

The former director of Jonathan’s campaign organisation said the governors were to blame for the inability of the country to develop more than it has currently, adding that even their wives exert almost the same powers as their husbands.

Orubebe and Gulak are believed to have drawn their strength of attack on the governors from the former federal Minister of Communications and the Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark who has never spared the governors, particularly those from the Niger Delta region.

Clark who has now constituted himself as the moving spirit behind Jonathan said the governors were wasteful in the utilisation of funds available to them from the monthly federal allocations. He opened up again last week after many months of silence.

But regardless, Kuku thinks exactly the way the likes of Orubebe, Gulak and Clark are thinking.

Speaking from the perspective of the Amnesty Programme of the Federal Government at an interactive session with editors in Lagos, Kuku claimed that the governors, particularly of the Niger Delta region, are not providing alternatives to the youths, women and children of the area even as most of them are receiving princely sums from the centre as allocation to do so.

Although he said there should be no ceiling to the resource control allocation to the Niger Delta area, Kuku who insisted that the Amnesty Programme has a gestation period of five years (2010-2015) said there is nothing Jonathan can do to change it because “Yar’Adua’s proclamation is final.”

However, he maintained that if the governors from the Niger Delta region were serious with governance and the plight of their people, by now they ought to have come up with ideas on how to sustain the gains recorded by the Federal Government with the Anmesty Programme, noting that only the governor of Akwa Ibom  State, Godswill Akpabio, seems to be making considerable impact.

Kuku also regretted that most of the things the Jonathan administration had done are deliberately being relegated, citing the changes in railway, airport, agriculture and even in power as a few.

Jonathan’s strategic attack appears to pay off somehow as a credible source hinted that there is deep-rooted divide within the Governors’ Forum with some members who are diehard supporters of the President said to be ready to thwart any move by any of their colleagues to upstage Jonathan in 2015. Some of the diehard supporters of Jonathan are from the South East.

The NGF had joined forces with Obasanjo to frustrate Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as the National Chairman of the PDP who is also Jonathan’s biggest strength within the PDP family.

Also on the issue of the Chairmanship of the BoT, while the governors were plotting for the removal of Tukur, Obasanjo was at the other end pressing for the candidature of Dr. Ahmadu Alli, a former National Chairman of the party.

Although some of the governors who are opposing Jonathan are in their second term, a source said, “Jonathan will have his way because some of them will want to go to the National Assembly which is where they will be expected to have the backing of the Presidency.”

Meanwhile, the Rivers State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has called for the immediate impeachment of Amaechi for what the party describes as his high-handedness and tactical design to suppress opposition in the state.

“Governor Amaechi has earmarked for demolition hotels and properties of those opposed to his style of governance. He has also banned opposition political gathering in Rivers State and threatens to tag them cultists, to enable him arrest and prosecute them”, the party said in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Jerry Needam.

The ACN therefore called “for the immediate removal of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi as the Chairman of the Governors Forum for being anti Rivers people and abandoning the business of governance for globe-trotting.”

The party anchored its call for Amaechi’s sack on what it also described as unbridled and “talkative character” of the Rivers State Chief Executive, contending further that an occupant of such office should not be too loquacious and “must guard against indulging in ludicrous acts that lower his office and state in the estimation of the right thinking members of the society.”

According to the party, “the only reason why Governor Amaechi is no longer self-respecting”, the ACN argued, “is the notion that his colleagues will always back him up in the event of any reprimand and by so doing, he keeps holding the Federal Government and by extension the entire Nigerian populace to ransom. This is dangerous and must be done away with immediately.”

Source: Daily Independent