Permutations over the possible replacement of Vice President Namadi Sambo as President Goodluck Jonathan’s running mate in the 2015 presidential election heightened over the weekend with fresh pressure from the president’s men that his deputy be dropped from the race.
Lately, Sambo has been under intense heat from certain interest groups within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), particularly from the north-west geopolitical zone, over his suitability to continue with President Jonathan beyond 2015.
This time round, foot-soldiers of the president in the 2011 presidential election under the aegis of the Northern PDP Stakeholders have threatened to dump PDP and work for the presidential candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) if Jonathan failed to drop Sambo for another candidate they consider a “core northerner”.
They claimed that it would be risky for the PDP to ignore the clamour for Sambo’s replacement.
In a statement they issued in Kaduna yesterday, which was signed by Alhaji Shehu Aboki Maishanu, the group said it was working with powerful northern politicians and the intelligentsia “who are not happy with the leadership style of the vice president”.
But the Presidency has dismissed the group’s demand, saying that the president cannot be intimidated, even as it traced the threat to the doorstep of the APC.
Sambo said he had done nothing to warrant being dropped from the 2015 race just as he described those after his job as “certain interests with some defeated desires”.
Nonetheless, the anti-Sambo group alleged that he lacked leadership and political skills to galvanise te north’s support for Jonathan in the 2015 election, should he decide to contest.
“The ongoing moves to bring back some aggrieved governors elected on the platform of the PDP who left the party will not work if President Jonathan insists on contesting the presidency with Sambo in 2015. Sambo is not representing the north very well and northerners are not happy with him; if all the outstanding issues concerning the status of the vice president are not tackled, the removal of Bamanga Tukur as PDP chairman will not change anything in the fortunes of the party in the north,” the statement read.
The group accused the vice president of sidelining experienced, qualified and dedicated party members in the north when it comes to political appointments, claiming that Sambo was only interested in recommending and influencing the appointments of his friends and surrogates into political offices instead of the larger interest of the north.
“The recent defection of some members of the PDP to the opposition APC in Kaduna, the home state of the vice president, is an indication that Sambo cannot mobilise support for the PDP in the north. He is surrounded by political neophytes mainly from Kaduna State, people who cannot win elections even in their polling units. As the highest ranking political office holder in the north, the vice president is yet to prove that he is in charge of the north politically.
“Even though many have not been forthcoming on the issue, we believe that, in the present Nigeria, the president and the vice president should not come from the same zone; while we accept that the vice president was born in the north, President Jonathan needs a core northerner to balance the political equation in the country.
“Stakeholders of the PDP in the north are disenchanted with the leadership style of the vice president and President Jonathan should not be deceived that all is well for him to run with Sambo in 2015,” the statement added.
In a reaction, the special adviser to the president on political matters, Ahmed Ali Gulak, described the threat as empty, saying such intimidation would not work against President Jonathan in the 2015 election. He said both Jonathan and Sambo are inseparable.
Gulak told LEADERSHIP Sunday that the said Maishanu group was unknown in the PDP and in the north to warrant according it any seriousness.
“I don’t think we need to waste time on things that are not serious in all their ramifications; by the way, who is Maishanu? Who knows him in the north and where is he from in the north, if I may ask? We have said it timelessly that Mr President and his deputy are 5 and 6 and they are inseparable.
“The president cannot be intimidated in any form by an unknown group or individual who is being sponsored by the opposition APC he is aiming to work for in 2015. We have seen the emptiness of the APC; Nigerians have seen their antics and have therefore rejected them; we have gone beyond them,” Gulak said.
Why they are after me – Sambo
To the vice president, those who want him out of the race as President Jonathan’s running mate in 2015 have missed it.
His spokesman, Umar Sani, told LEADERSHIP Sunday that his continuation as the president’s running mate in 2015 depended on his boss, Jonathan.
“The issues around the noise being made about the vice president’s possible replacement or not are not for us to discuss on the pages of newspapers because the Presidency has always said it that the two leaders will run together.
“But then, you can understand why such issues come up always; people want to be relevant politically; most of those sponsoring the media attacks are on their final laps in politics, so they want to be fixed, but in the wrong way,” Sani said.
Source: Leadership
