Indications emerged last night that the leadership of the Northern Governors’ Forum scored a big political point on Thursday by convincing the Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido to endorse the presidential ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
Competent party sources told Saturday Vanguard that the chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum and Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, who is said to have the ears of the Jigawa governor, was given the task to work on Lamido to join the train in endorsing Jonathan.
To get the governor to join his colleagues in giving his assent to Jonathan to fly the PDP flag, Aliyu reportedly told Lamido that Jonathan had accepted to abide by all the commitments that he made to Jigawa people during his electioneering campaign in the state in 2011.
Top on the list of the commitment extracted from Jonathan for Lamido is that the Presidency will refund the sum of over N15 billion expended by Lamido to build the Dutse International Airport, a project which the Federal Government promised to undertake but failed.
Similarly, the Presidency also agreed to undertake the immediate construction of the Auyo Irrigation Project, which was started by the Shagari Administration but abandoned and has remained an electioneering topic by successive presidential candidates and parties.
Besides, the Federal Government, it was learnt, also agreed to construct a major road in the state to connect the state-owned university at Kafin Hausa, as a means of appeasing the governor and his people.
A top source in Jigawa said that Lamido accepted to support Jonathan’s candidature at the PDP NEC meeting in Abuja on Thursday because according to him “there has been a commitment” by President Jonathan to fulfill his campaign promises to the people of the state.
“All along, Governor Lamido had insisted that he would only support the president if he fulfilled his campaign promises to the state and not that he wanted to replace him as some persons were insinuating, a top official said.
But the Director of Press to Governor Lamido, Mr. Umar Kyari, who spoke on the phone from Saudi Arabia, pointed out that the governor had never had any disagreement with Jonathan on the issue of running for the same office.
“As a matter of fact, the governor has never declared his intention to challenge Jonathan in the Presidential race but it was only his admirers, who suggested that based on the brilliant performance he has put up in the state, he could replicate same if he becomes the president of Nigeria,” Umar explained.
“It must be made abundantly clear that governor Lamido has never told anyone that he was going to challenge Jonathan in the presidential election in 2015,” the spokesman stressed.
It would be recalled that Lamido had distanced himself from the initial endorsement of President Jonathan by the North-West Zone of the PDP two weeks ago but did not give any reasons.
The development was then taken to mean that he was ready to slug it out with Jonathan at the polls come 2015. But the position changed dramatically when Lamido turned up at the NEC meeting of PDP and endorsed Jonathan as the sole candidate for the presidential race next year.
Source: Vanguard
