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.”