There are indications that the campaign to ensure that President Goodluck Jonathan contests the 2011 election has taken off.
BusinessDay investigations reveal that ministers and top aides of the president have been mandated to go to their zones and begin mobilisation to ensure that Jonathan picks the ticket of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) whenever the party holds its national convention later in the year. The party is yet to fix date for its convention.
Already, Mohammed Abba Aji, the president’s special adviser on National Assembly Matters, is the chairman of a pro-Jonathan campaign group called Friends of Democracy. The organisation’s director-general is Cairo Ojougboh, another aide of the president, who sometime in the past said Jonathan would contest the 2011 election.
The statement was retracted within 24 hours then with Ojougboh saying he was expressing his personal opinion. It was believed that he was reprimanded by the presidency then as betraying a motive that was yet to be unfolded. Already, Friends of Democracy has begun intense mobilisation for the 2011 aspiration of Jonathan. Its campaign posters are posted all over the federal capital, Abuja, while the organisation has started reaching out to other pro-Jonathan groups in order to harmonise their campaign.
The issue of Jonathan contesting the 2011 election has been contentious with a section insisting on a zoning arrangement agreed to on December 2, 2002 at an expanded meeting of the PDP caucus. Jonathan’s camp has been quietly meandering its way to clear the huddles for the president to seek the ticket of the party for next year’s election.
The first major hurdle Jonathan had to cross was the uncooperative attitude of the former chairman of the party, Vincent Ogbulafor. The resignation of Ogbulafor following his arraignment on corruption charges by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) paved the way for the appointment of Okwesilieze Nwodo as chairman of the party.
Since his emergence as chairman of the party, Nwodo has taken steps which are in favour of Jonathan’s 2011 aspiration. The party chairman recently declared that zoning in PDP ceased to exist after the 1999 election which brought former President Olusegun Obasanjo to power. There are also moves to effect reform in the party to whittle down the influence of governors elected on the party’s platform in relation to picking the presidential flag bearer of the party for 2011. The reform will ensure that the number of a governor’s aides who will be eligible to be delegates to the party’s national convention will reduce.
Jonathan’s camp has also moved to break the ranks of northern politicians who are insisting on zoning. This has resulted in the split in the position of the northern political elite. While politicians like Iyorchia Ayu and Adamu Ciroma insist on zoning, others like Aminu Bello Masari, Nasir el Rufai, Jerry Gana, Babangida Aliyu and many others have called for a discarding of the zoning arrangement.
The resolution of the northern political summit held in Kaduna on Thursday that since Jonathan and the late President Umaru Yar’Adua were elected on the same ticket, there was nothing wrong with Jonathan contesting is an indication that the president has gained a foothold in the north.