2015: ASO ROCK IN DISARRAY OVER ONE-TERM PACT WITH GOVERNORS

It’s not only Umar that has this perception. Alhaji Kabiru Ali, a resident of
Kano told Sunday Trust that it’s not every statement from government that he
takes to heart. According to him, “sometimes there are statements made by the
government in order to divert people’s attention. And there are statements that
are direct and true. So, when one hears anything from government, all he needs
to do is to, first of all, think and see if that is possible. This is simply
because the government is full of corruption and masterminds of all kind of
evils and deceits.”
 Though Umar lives in Kaduna and Ali lives in Kano, a distance of about
200 kilometres, they hold the same perception of government, a perception that
has come to public discourse since last week when Governor Babangida Aliyu of
Niger State told the world that President Goodluck Jonathan signed a pact with
governors not to seek another term in 2015. There are indications that the
president is oiling his political machinery to seek re-election at the
expiration of his current tenure.
While the public began to digest the import of the pact viz-a-viz the
groundswell of debate over Jonathan’s 2015 ambition, another controversy
erupted. Last Sunday, Dame Patience Jonathan, at a thanksgiving service, told
Nigerians that she had been considered ‘dead’ by doctors for seven days during
her medical trip to Germany. The shock emanated from earlier statements by her
media aides that the First Lady had travelled abroad to rest. The string of
denials did not snap in spite of the fact that enquiries made by journalists at
a German hospital indicated that Dame Patience was being treated for an
undisclosed ailment. The denial was given flesh by even the First Lady who, on
her return, told Nigerians that she never visited any doctor. If she never did,
why the multiple surgeries, death and resurrection thanksgiving?
On the now controversial issue of a single tenure for President Jonathan, it
was supposed to be a political but gentleman agreement among governors of the
PDP, a way of assuaging bitter minds over the twist of the zoning formula of
the party. After much debate and doubts, on December 16, 2010, as many as 21
PDP governors and many PDP lords agreed that Jonathan would run for on term.
The content of the pact runs thus: 
1.     “Democratic systems all over the world recognize the
principle of incumbency and continuity.
2.     “Entrenched democratic culture persistent in presidential
system and our constitution entitles our President to run for a second term
which the PDP Governors support.
3.     “The Governors also recognize the Yar’adua/Jonathan
ticket and therefore hereby support and endorse President Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan (GCFR) to contest the 2011 election as the PDP Presidential candidate
for a period of four years only.”
This pact with PDP governors gave the president an unquantifiable advantage
over another major contender for Aso Rock seat and former Vice President Atiku
Abubakar. Being the leaders of PDP in their states, the governors’ endorsement
was synonymous to a leap to victory at the polls. As it were, the pact became a
campaign instrument, as Jonathan’s campaign director, Dalhatu Sarki Tafida,
capitalized on it to seek the people’s support. His sing-song became: “The
President wants to run for one term…Let us give him the four years and see how
he performs.”
 On his part, President Jonathan on July 28, 2011, reiterated it at PDP
National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, saying his proposal for single-tenure
presidency and governorship was for the good of the nation because, if the idea
became law, he would not be a beneficiary. After a long explanation on the
single tenure proposal, he remarked that, “It has nothing to do with elongation
of tenure. The tenure of Jonathan Goodluck ends in 2015. That is the provision
of the constitution. So, it has nothing to do with that.’’
The president reiterated this position in Addis Ababa on March 26, 2011, and
his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, told journalists,
while clarifying issues related to the single term proposal, that Jonathan
would not benefit from it.

How Governor Aliyu brought the issue to the front burner:
Niger State Governor Aliyu brought the issue of Jonathan’s pact with governors
to the fore, probably, in the wake of subterranean moves by elements close to
the president to begin 2015 electoral campaign. Governor Aliyu, spoke in Kaduna
state where he featured in Guest of the Week on Liberty FM Radio (91.7).
He told the radio station that “I recall that at the time, he was going to
declare for the 2011 election, all the PDP Governors were brought together to
ensure that we were all in the same frame of mind.”
“And I recall that some of us said given the circumstances of the death of
President Umaru Yar’Adua and given the PDP zoning arrangement, it was expected
that the North was to produce the President for a given number of years.
“I recall that at that discussion, it was agreed that Jonathan would serve only
one term of four years and we all signed the agreement. Even when Jonathan went
to Kampala, in Uganda, he also said he was going to serve a single term.”
Denying that such a pact existed, the Special Assistant to the President on
Political Matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, described the pact as “frivolous,”
adding that “The alleged agreement only exists in the figment of the
imagination of somebody with presidential ambition. Anybody who has a
presidential ambition, it is such a person’s constitutional right to have
ambition.”
Though the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr Doyin
Okupe, intervened last week to say the presidency would not make comments on
the issued raised by Niger State governor because it was not yet campaign
period, the current scenario is similar to what played out in 2010 when a
zoning principle enshrined in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) constitution
was trampled upon to give Jonathan from South-South a ticket that should have
been given to a northern candidate. On December 2, 2002, what was termed
“Enlarged Caucus Meeting (ECM)” of the PDP, comprising 47 members, a meeting in
which Jonathan as Deputy Governor represented the absent Bayelsa State
governor, agreed that power should rotate every eight years between the North
and South. After a long debate and agreement read out by the then National
Secretary, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, the caucus had agreed to the proposal.
However, in an attempt to pave way for Jonathan to contest the presidential
poll in 2011, the pact was roundly denied as nonexistent, until Daily Trust,
dug it out of the archives and published it. This did not prevent the party
from handing over the ticket to President Jonathan, however.

Questions over Jonathan’s ambition in Aso Rock
Governor Aliyu’s outburst on Liberty FM Radio, Kaduna, may not be unconnected
with the hide and seek game between governors and the presidency. Several
governors who are serving their second terms have their eyes on the presidency,
either as president or vice president, and Jonathan’s ambition will extinguish
their own dreams. Sunday Trust learnt that some courageous governors had told
the presidency that if Jonathan insisted on keeping the PDP’s ticket, then they
would explore the option created by the emerging opposition All Progressive
Congress (APC) and move into it in droves. 
Governor Aliyu made an allusion to this last week when he warned that if the
PDP did not put its house in order, Nigerians would vote the alternative party,
the APC, into power in the next election. Even at Wadata Plaza, there is no
sign of peace, as the National Working Committee (NWC) is confused over how to
handle the apparent quarrel between governors and the Presidency.
Sunday Trust learnt that though elements like Chief Edwin Clark, Elder Godsday
Orubebe, Arc. Mike Oziegbe Onolememen, Chief Mike Aiyebeni Ogiadomhe and Alhaji
Ahmed Gulak, and have continued to encourage President Jonathan to courageously
take a shot at the presidential polls in 2015, Aso Rock is unsettled over the
2010 one-term pact with governors. In their argument, at the rate the roads,
railways, aviation, power, higher education and employment-generation projects
are being aggressively completed across the country, when it is time for the next
elections, Nigerians would ignore the pact and the hackneyed zoning principle
of the PDP and support Jonathan’s candidature. As reported by Sunday Trust
recently, Jonathan has revived his campaign structure with the appointment of
his 2011 presidential campaign coordinators as head of the Subsidy
Re-investment and Empowerment Programme across the 36 states and the Federal
Capital Territory (FCT). 
The uncertainty in Aso Rock is emphasised by the fact that Vice President
Namadi Sambo who has an ambition to contest the 2015 presidency, if Jonathan
does not seek another term, is under close watch to ensure that he does not set
up his campaign machinery which could clash with Jonathan’s ambition. “The
Vice-President’s camp is frustrated,” the insider confided in our reporter.
“However, it is not folding its arms. Contacts are being made with good
political mobilisers across the country as a Plan B, in case President Jonathan
gives in to pressures not to contest in 2015.”
If Jonathan does not run, it would not be a blow to the president. Rather, it
is his hangers-on that would be disorientated.
The question being asked in the political circle is, how bound is Jonathan by
the pact with PDP governors? A former Nigerian Bar Association President, Chief
Olurotimi Akeredolu, SAN, told Sunday Trust that “it (pact) is certainly not a
legal document.  It cannot be legally binding. It can be best described as
political agreement.”  
Another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ahmed Raji, added that such an agreement
was more of political gymnastics and totally outside the province of law Court.
His words “for anything to be binding, it must be in line with the
constitution. If such an agreement exists, President Jonathan still has a right
under the constitution to seek re-election.   I do not see how such
an agreement can divest him of constitutional right to seek for re-election.
Such an agreement may, however, be used as a campaign issue, which is totally
outside the province of a law Court.”
He advised the governors to consult lawyers in future before entering into such
agreements.
According to him, the court of law should not be dragged into the issue since
it is an agreement which is only binding in honour and not an agreement
enforceable by any Court of law. If at all it exists, it is not justiceable. He
wondered how a few governors could sit down and abrogate or modify the rights
of the generality of Nigerians to pick their choice. 
A professor of Law, Taiwo Osipitan, in his remarks said “President Jonathan’s
one-term agreement with the governors was not binding on Nigerians who have the
mandate to vote and elect their president. In a presidential election the whole
Nigeria and all eligible voters are the president’s constituency.”
However, another senior lawyer, P. O.  Jimoh Lassisi, SAN, opined that the
pact is binding since it was a signed agreement. It would be unfair for anyone
who has signed an agreement to renege on it. Specifically, he mentioned that
for a person occupying the Office of the President, his words should be his
bond.

Other flip-flops by Aso Rock
In recent times, there have been instances of contradictions by Aso Rock, apart
from the double-speak on the First Lady’s health condition. For instance, after
the October 1, 2010 bomb attacks at Eagle Square, President Jonathan told
Nigerians that the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)
could not be responsible for the criminal act. But as it turned out, a renowned
leader of MEND, Henry Okah, has been convicted in a South African court over
his involvement in the bomb blasts. Also, the presidency gave Nigerians hopes
that the insecurity that has ravaged it was being addressed when Dr Abati said
government was in talks with Boko Haram. But in a shocking denial, President
Jonathan said the group was faceless and government could not hold talks with
such an organisation. Also, there are many campaign promises, which have
remained men promises. For instance, Jonathan told Nigerians that he would
ensure that Nigerians do not use generators more than two times in a week, but
that has not happened. Electricity supply is not better than what it was during
the presidential campaign. He had also promised to create, in the two years,
1.5 million jobs. Apart from the SURE-P youth and graduate employment scheme, which
are no employment in the real sense of it, no jobs are being created, not to
talk of 1.5 million of them. He further promised to, in four years, make
Nigeria go beyond producing and exporting crude oil to exporting refined
petroleum products because Nigeria has no reason to keep importing kerosene.
There are no indications that this is happening. Almost two years after he made
the promise, the country’s refineries are producing below capacity, which
subsidy on petroleum products has not abated. Kerosene is still out of the
reach of those who use it.
As a result of the flip-flops of government, Nigerians no longer trust what its
spokespersons say. Kaduna-based Nnamdi Onyenede, remarked thus: “I can’t trust
them. There is no way to verify government’s information because they always
adulterate documents. The government and their spokespersons are not being
sincere, honest and they are not working with integrity. This is a common fact
for everybody. So, I have stopped caring about government spokespersons’ statements.”
Mr Yinka Odumakin, a Lagos-based civil rights activist, said this situation
brings government to disrepute. According to him, “the president and his aides
need to be told that when there is this kind of credibility gap it does not
help. You recalled that when there was MEND bombing during the 50th
Independence anniversary, the president came out to say MEND was not
responsible, but Okah has been convicted and jailed in South Africa over the
incident. Again, they said the First Lady was resting in Germany, but she
recently did a thanksgiving where she confirmed that she died for seven
days.  These lies do not give credibility to the presidency. I think it’s
either the president’s aides are not doing their jobs well or they did not
realize that the office of the president is not where you can just tell lies
that cannot be sustained.
“The frivolous lies pose serious challenge to the office of the president. For
instance, if by tomorrow the presidency comes out to say good morning fellow
Nigerians, people will need to look at their wrist watches before they answer.
So the credibility gap is not good for the presidency. I think Mr President
will need to repackage himself and make him more credible than he is at the
moment.
I think the president should know that he can only build trust around his
administration by his track records. If he makes mistakes he could correct them
by apologizing to the people, else it will be difficult for Nigerians to trust
him. Trust can only be earned; he cannot command it. He can’t buy it but he
must earn it. So, if these kinds of lies are told by the president, it means
his aides are not doing their jobs and the danger is, that, it will make it
difficult for Nigerians to trust their president even when he means well.”