Jostling for Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan

Even as the zoning debate rage, groups rooting for President Goodluck Jonathan’s election next year grow from a motley handful to a monstrous crowd
By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
If the number of pressure groups supporting the aspiration or candidature of a political gladiator in any given election is the sole determinant of where the tide of victory will flow, then President Goodluck Jonathan is as good as having won next year’s presidential election.
And their is even as the debate over the controversial zoning formular of his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) gets fiercer and intrigues over the issue more and more intricate. Seemingly unperturbed by these, President Jonathan’s support base is getting wider by the day as groups drumming support for his 2011 presidential bid swell by the day.
This is even as the president is yet to make a categorical statement as regards his interest or otherwise in the contest. Essentially, under the PDP's informal zoning arrangement, power at the centre ought to rotate between the North and South every eight years. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently completed the South’s turn via his eight year reign (1999-2007).
The North’s slot began on May 29, 2007 through late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s presidency. But his death on May 5, 2010 threw up Jonathan, a Southerner of Ijaw extraction as President, thereby truncating the zoning formular. Jonathan’s supporters argue that God has himself – courtesy Yar’Adua’s death – re-ordered the party’s zoning formular and re-zoned the presidency to the South south, the President’s home region, so any opposition to him as regards the 2011 presidency would be tantamount to opposing God.
Barnabas Gemade, former PDP National Chairman is one of those who hold the view that Jonathan’s emergence as president is akin to divine zoning.
But such views have so far failed to sway anti-Jonathan elements, especially in the North who insist that the region must produce the next president in keeping with the PDP zoning policy. Former self-styled military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Senate President, Iyorchia Ayu, Tanko Yakassai, former FCT Minister, General Jeremiah Useni (rtd), among others are some Northern politicians insisting on zoning and by extension are opposed to Jonathan's bid.
But this is against the grain of growing support for Jonathan across the country's six geo-political zones. One of the pro-Jonathan groups urging him to contest the 2011 presidential election, African Women in Diaspora, Nigerian chapter three weeks ago added a comic touch to the entire Jonathan-for-president crusade when they vowed to go on sex strike should the president fail by August 27, 2010, to declare his intention to run for the high office.
In a statement signed by the group’s Communication Officer, Mrs. Patricia Badejo, the women appealed to commercial sex workers to join them in the pro-Jonathan campaign, claiming that they are backing the president because “he has been very sensitive to gender issues and issues concerning widows and orphans since he came into office.”
“If he (Jonathan) fails, it will force the AWDN women to embark on seven-day sex starvation and will appeal to every well-meaning Nigerian woman all over the world to join with us in the journey of sex-starvation,” the group threatened.
Another pro-Jonathan group, Middle Belt Congress is hinging its support for the President on the support the North has been receiving from the South south over the years. Aligning itself with the position taken by Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe on the issue, the group averred that the North is now morally bound to reciprocate such support by not opposing the Jonathan presidency.
The National Democratic Forum (NDF) led by Jonathan Vasta is another group in the North central zone of the country assiduously working for the enthronmenet of the Ijaw-born president next year.
Vasta, son of late General Mamman Vasta who was executed in 1986 for alleged coup plotting by the Babangida regime, recently declared in Minna, the Niger State capital that “zoning is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good. Those who are canvassing for zoning are looking for means of hiding their inadequacies as they lack the potentials and abilities to face the entity called Nigeria… zoning can only produce a mediocre to be at the helm of the affairs of the country.”
In the North east, “Towards Nigeria Initiative,” appears to be the prime group rooting for President Jonathan as far as the 2011 presidential contest is concerned. Believed to be promoted by the Adamawa state Governor, Murtala Nyako, the group, The Source gathered, appears to have been set up by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar's opponents as a counterpoise to the letter's presidential ambition. Currently, Nyako and Atiku are engaged in a titanic battle for the control of Adamawa PDP.
The former Vice President who recently returned to the party from the Action Congress (AC) scored a major political victory in the state when he successfully installed his foot soldiers in the state House of Assembly following the removal of the House leadership led by former speaker, James Barkar.
In the South east state of Ebonyi, the entire state recently stood still for several hours as a pro-Jonathan group, Ebonyi Youth Assembly organised a rally to drum support for the president. President of the Assembly, Comrade Chinedu Ogah, had declared at the occassion: “We are doing this because of the good work of the president and his Vice who have made Nigeria now have constant electricity.” The state governor, Martin Elechi graced the rally.
One of the high voltage surprises in the resurgence of support for President Jonathan is the realisation that some of those who only few months ago were trechant in their opposition to his emergence either as Acting President or substantive President are now arrowheads of some of the pro-Jonathan groups.
One of such persons is a controversial politician, Godwin Daboh. At the height of former President Yar’Adua’s prolonged absence from the country as a result of ill-health and the consequent vacuum it created, Daboh had in various media interviews vowed that in the spirit of zoning, under no circumstance would the North allow the South control of the presidency. But the Benue state-born politician is now singing a totally different tune. In an interview recently, Daboh claimed that Jonathan is the best thing to have happened to the country and that his presidency next year is already fait accompli. He also claimed to have spent millions of naira of personal money in his pro-Jonathan campaigns.
For, one the groups crusading for Jonathan are not faceless, unlike what obtained in the not-too-distant past. They are also steadfast in their campaigns as many of the them have been organising press conferences to explain their motive and advance their cause – a marked departure from what obtained in the past when some faceless groups saturated the polity, drumming support without let or hinderance.
For instance, in the run-up to the aborted Third Republic, one of such groups, the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) relentlessly crusaded for the transmutation of the then military dictator, Babangida, to a civilian president. Many of the advertorials that the group pushed out in the newspapers in support of the Babangida cause had one “Dr Atkin” as ABN’s founder. It wasn’t until the tail end of 1992 that the real masquerade behind ABN unmasked himself and it turned out to be Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe! His co-traveller was one Abimbola Davis.
In 1997/98, Daniel Kanu, an apparently misgaided youth, did not have to mask himself to crusade for the transmutation of the late maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha into a civilian president. At the height of the campaigns by cronies of the date dictator for his transmutation, Kanu then in his early 30s set up an Abacha.- for- president group, Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA).
Before long, YEAA practically drowned other pro-Abacha groups with its vociferous campaigns. The group’s “One-Million Man March” in Abuja in support of the Abacha project was one of the highpoints of its crusade.
The march attracted several political heavyweights across the country who came to make pro-Abacha speeches. Many of which they have lived to regret since the death of the maximum leader in 1998.
Essentially, the last time Nigeria’s political landscape witnessed the kind of country-wide support the Jonathan project is now receiving was the Peter Odili presidential campaign. In the run-up to the 2007 PDP presidential primaries, the former Rivers State governor’s ambition for the presidency received rock-solid support across the country, with various groups fanatically campaigning for him. Two of such groups were the National Committee of Yoruba Youths (NCYY) and the National Consolidation Organisation.
But Odili's efforts somewhat pales into insignicance when compared with the number of groups that spring up daily in Jonathan’s support. Last week, former Minister and National Publicity Secretary of the Goodluck Support Group, the umbrella association of all pro-Jonathan groups, Dr. Saidu Sambawa, summoned a meeting of the about 696 groups canvassing support for the president to a meeting in Abuja. The Source gathered that it is becoming increasingly clear to some pro-zoning Northern politicians still opposing Jonathan that it will almost be an uphill task to dislodge the president from either picking the PDP presidential ticket or winning the presidential election outrightly.
Thus, the option being weighed now by some political leaders from the zone is to negotiate with Jonathan to do only one term so that in 2015, the region would commence a fresh eight-year slot. The reckoning is that that is the most suitable leeway out of the zoning logjam which the PDP now finds itself.
The calculation of the proponents of this option is that it will be akin to killing three, not two birds with one stone: taking care of the South south presidential slot, retain zoning and then allow the North a fresh eight- year slot plus Yar’Adua’s three years. Essentially, by 2015 Jonathan would have ruled Nigeria for five years, three years short of the eight-year rotational arrangement between the North and South. But the South south, The Source gathered, is ready to sacrifice the three years and accept a Jonathan five-year reign as having taken its turn in the rotational arrangement.
But in Nigeria's balance of power and delicate power equation, the South east, analysts contend, will be the big loser should the above option sail through. This, according to them, is because, going by the arrangement, should the North get back power in 2015 it will hold it till 2023, thus shutting the Igbo race out of Nigeria’s epicenter of political power for 57 years (1966-2023) since the late General Aguyi Ironsi’s six-month stint in office.
Some Northern presidential hopefuls are thus capitalising on this sentiment to woo the South east in their pro-zoning crusade. For example, Babangida recently told Ndigbo that his interest in the 2011presidnecy is to pave the way for an Igbo to emerge president in 2015. He told them he would do only one term and leave the stage in 2015.
The ex-dictator is believed to have dangled the vice presidential, slot to a number of Igbo politicians including former Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu who recently defected to the PDP.


Some Key Pro-Jonathan Crusaders
S/N Groups Prime Mover(s)
1 Goodluck Grassroots Movement DSP Alamieyeseigha, Ibrahim Jimoh, Mike Oghiadome, Abba Aji
2. The 4th Force Senator Patrick Ani
3. Congress for Equity and Change Senator Ameh Ebute, Edwin Clark
4. The Jonathan - Namadi Movement Alhaji Sani Saleh Fantami
5. Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) Edozie Madu
6. Conference of Niger Delta Youth Leaders (CNYC) Hendrick Oputeme, Cletus Arerebo
7. Ebonyi Youth Assembly Chinedu Ogah
8. Towards Nigeria Initiative Murtala Nyako
9. National Democratic Forum (NDF) Jonathan Vasta
10. National Mandate for Peace, Accountability and Dr. (Hon) Kingdom Ogbamgba (JP), Good Governance in the Niger-Delta Victor Dennis Ekaro
11. Youths Ask for Goodluck Jonathan (YAG) John Chijina
12. National Association of Nigerian Students (NANs) Comrade Ezekwelu Chukwudubem
13. The New Nigeria Initiative Diekivie Ikiogha
14. Goodluck Support Group (GNG) Dr. Saidu Sambawa, Ahmed Ali Gulak
15. Middle Belt Congress A.K Jime Nazir Kotangora, Paul Famwang
16. Jonathan/Sambo Presidential Movement Arede Edeinmene
17. African Women in Diaspora Lady Igoniwari, Patricia Badejo
18. South-South Summit Governors of the South south and po- litical stakeholders
19. Ijaw National Congress (INC) Kimse Okoko
20. Northern Political Summit Solomon Lar, Jerry Gana
21. Southern Solidarity Front (SSF) Pastor Francis Kejuo
22. Towards A Greater Nigeria Initiative Samuel Umoh
23. Goodluck National Support Organisation (GNSO) Joshua Dariye
24. Ndokwa National Youth Movement Friday Osanebi
25. South South Forum of Commerce Bully Harry
26. Goodluck Support Group (GSG) Dr. Uche Oko
27. Ndigbo Summit Chief Mbazulike Amaechi