2015: Jonathan Responds to Obasanjo’s Plot to Put Northern President
President
Goodluck Jonathan has allegedly commissioned a group of political
experts to begin to counteract ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s possible
secret plans to work for the emergence of a Northerner as the President
in 2015.
According
to the source of SaharaReporters Jonathan’s team is charged with
strategising on the best manoeuvres to contain Mr. Obasanjo’s moves.
President
Jonathan has no clear understanding of where Mr. Obasanjo stands in the
crisis tearing apart the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but the
President has decided not to take chances by ignoring Obasanjo.
The
Northern members of the team set up by the President have been mandated
to lead the first stage of Mr. Jonathan’s campaigns and consultations
across the entire Northern states.
“Some
of the President’s pundits have swung into action in the ‘core’
Northern states of Sokoto, Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina and
northern Kaduna,” the source disclosed.
He
added that Jerry Gana, Jonathan Silas Zwingina, Abdulkadir Kure, and
Isaiah Balat were among those
assigned to run the early stages of the
President’s campaign in the Middle Belt.
“Another
group led by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and Barrister Ahmed Gulak is working
on the same mission in the North-East axis,” he said.
The
source revealed that a key strategy of the President’s group was to
seek the support of top Islamic and Christian clerics in the North. The
well-funded presidential group is offering millions of naira to selected
clerics in return for their political sympathy for Mr. Jonathan’s
reelection campaign.
“Mr.
President is aware of Chief Obasanjo’s previous antecedents. Look at
[Mr. Obasanjo’s] close relationship with the arrowheads of the rebellion
in the PDP. He is the one who made Sule Lamido, Aliyu Babangida of
Niger and Wammako of Sokoto. It’s the same thing with Nyako in Adamawa
State.
“We
gathered that Obasanjo is having serious problems with the IBB [Ibrahim
Badamasi Babangida] and Abdulsalami circle that made it possible for
him to be president in 1999. And we know that Chief Obasanjo wants to
settle the Umaru Yar’Adua saga that led to the emergence of Jonathan. He
thinks it is best to help install a Northern President in 2015. And he
is also not happy with Jonathan’s style and some power blocks
influencing the president,” the source added.