2011: As Jonathan dangles one term ‘carrot’
[President Goodluck Jonathan] With political parties’ primaries in the offing, it is evident that President Goodluck Jonathan and his political spin doctors are not ready to leave anything to chance as he prepares to clinch the slot of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming elections despite the controversy trailing the party’s power rotation agreement. The latest political strategy adopted by the Jonathan camp is the PDP governors’ endorsement of the president to serve a four-year single term which expires in 2015. It could be recalled that having failed to push through legislations that would have ensured that his ministers, advisers and the army of aides become delegates to the PDP presidential primaries of 2011, President Jonathan had turned to the National Assembly with a view to break the near stranglehold the governors have on the ruling party.
To his chagrin, that attempt also failed, including the one on the order of the primaries. It was as a fall-out of this that the president was eventually offered what analysts consider a face-saving one term of four years by the governors with 20 of them reportedly endorsing him. The governors declared in a communiqué a fortnight ago that they “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 development, as controversial as it turned out to be, created more questions than answers to the raging controversy within the ruling party over the zoning provision enshrined in the party’s constitution. The governors’ endorsement paved a way for another controversy which is whether President Jonathan will stick to the single four year term offered him by the governors having refused to honour the rotational power agreement adopted by the party in 2002. Apart from this, the president’s men are equally planning to push for a constitutional amendment to enforce a seven-year single term for both the president and the governors.
‘Jonathan can’t be trusted’
There is this fear from several quarters whether the president can stick to the single-term alternative provided him by the PDP governors. From politicians to the civil society organisations, the answer is in the negative citing the president’s antecedents. The campaign organisation of the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and Jonathan’s arch rival in the contest for the party’s presidential ticket, for instance, believed otherwise.
The spokesperson of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Malam Garba Shehu told Sunday Trust in an interview that it is evident that Jonathan cannot be trusted by Nigerians. “One of the strategies that Jonathan has adopted, a single term of four years, appears similar to that of Atiku. But the difference lies in the fact that whereas Atiku had made handing over to the South- East in 2015 a major plank of his strategy, Jonathan only accepted to serve for just a one term of your years by proxy in a face-saving soft landing by governors of PDP states,” the Atiku’s aide said.
He added that, “to unravel the essential President Goodluck Jonathan, one may need to go back to December 2002. On that day, Jonathan who was then Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, was in attendance at a national caucus meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by default. For whatever reason, his boss, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was not available for that meeting and had delegated him to represent him. That coincidence appears to have been a fortuitous one.
“It was at that meeting that the rotation of power between the North and South of the country was affirmed. Jonathan was the 35th signatory on the resolution of that meeting reaffirming the rotation of power between the two regions. It was expected that following the expiration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure on May 29, 2007, power would return to the North and reside there for eight years. It did with the ascendance of late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua,” Shehu said.
“However, with the demise of Yar’adua after a protracted illness on May 5, 2010, Jonathan was thrown up as an “accidental president,” thus setting the stage for a titanic battle between Jonathan who is committed to running in 2011, in negation of that PDP pact and the North,” he said.
The Atiku’s aide said that, “reading between the lines from what transpired at that last NEC meeting where Jonathan was endorsed, it was clear that the president has refused to answer the two fundamental questions: Is he ready to serve a single term? Again, which region will he hand over power to after serving the single term? We don’t need a clairvoyant to know the mindset of the president on these issues.”
‘It’s a PDP affair’
According to the National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Mr Osita Okechukwu, the situation is basically a desperate attempt by the drowning ruling party to remain in power by hook or crook.
“Jonathan’s endorsement is a PDP affair. It doesn’t concern us at the CNPP as long as the governors will allow the votes of Nigerians to count. We fervently hope that the PDP governors will arrogate themselves the inalienable right of the people for whoever they want,” he said.
The CNPP chieftain explained that the ruling party is confused, particularly with the mounting pressure from within it as well as the behemoth resistance and fight the opposition parties are poised to confront the ruling partywith in the forthcoming polls.
“The signals are clear for Jonathan and his co-travellers. The handwriting is clear on the wall that the ruling party is collapsing like a pack of cards with the recent loss and defeat in the South West by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the bourgeoning influence of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the north. The party is implementing strategies to survive beyond May 29, 2011. It is indeed an arduous task for the PDP,” Okechukwu said.
“On the issue of the single term tenure, President Jonathan should know that such opportunity is elusive for the PDP because the party is in the state of decline and apparently, cannot win the 2011 polls. It is important to take note that progressives with brooms from Lagos and pens from Sokoto have commenced the moves to sweep away the PDP. So, when is Jonathan going to implement that programme when his party itself is on the verge of implosion?”
‘Jonathan is taking Nigerians for a ride’
Also, the President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) , Malam Shehu Sani, told Sunday Trust that the president’s attempt is ridiculous and an undemocratic ploy to subvert the will of the people.
He explained that it is funny for the president and his spin doctors to believe that they can take Nigerians for a ride once again having carved a niche for himself as someone who breaks a gentleman’s agreement and doesn’t honour his words. “President Jonathan lacks the honour and integrity to be trusted for his word. His offer for a four-year-single-term is a political gimmick and enticement. It is a political deception and skulduggery aimed at neutralising the opposition within his party,” he said.
He cited the president’s summersault over zoning and rotational agreement which is an integral part of his party’s constitution as some of the reasons why Nigerians won’t take Jonathan serious on anything. “President Goodluck Jonathan on rotation of power or zoning, exposed his perfidy and vitiates any modicum of honour in his word. Whoever chooses to believe Jonathan is to be a perpetual fool,. A people led by a leader whose word is not his bond are in bondage,” Sani said.
The civil society groups are not finding the ruling party’s survival plans funny, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, told Sunday Trust. He said that “the plan has no public input and it is a part of the agenda for those who are afraid to face the electorate in free, fair and transparent elections. Periodic elections are an integral aspect of democratic rule.”
Rafsanjani said that endorsement of President Jonathan by the PDP governors itself is devoid of democratic ingredients. “There are democratic guidelines enshrined in both the Electoral Act and the political parties themselves where delegates would elect those they feel should become their flag bearers in elections. It is unfortunate that governors would arrogate themselves the powers of hoisting a candidate on the party,” he said.
The CISLAC director declared that the whole plans “are informed by the ruling party’s desperation to remain in power. For any such thing to happen, there should be a referendum where the voice of Nigerians will count. Anything short of that is only dictatorship which Nigerians will definitely rise against. After all, Nigerians are not naive in thwarting individual efforts to subject them to perpetual slavery and dictatorship having fought former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term project.
‘Jonathan is a man of his word’
But the national legal adviser of the PDP, Chief Olusola Oke, disagrees with Atiku’s camp submission. He told Sunday Trust in an interview that, “there is no law that says that a Nigerian must run two terms. How many terms you want to run within the confine of the law is entirely your own decision and it should be taken that a person in an esteemed position as that of the President of Nigeria, must be a man whose words must be his bond. So you don’t require any enforcement by law before you can hold him onto that and if he derogates from that, it means that the electorate should be able to decide that this is not a man to be trusted.”
He explained that, “it is true that at the end of another four years from now, he would have done a four-year tenure of his own – first term. Again, that also requires the interpretation of the law. The law talking about two terms- ordinarily you cannot take oath of office three times. So, it would still be a legal question- whether merely completing the tenure of President Yar’adua takes him outside the confines of somebody who has subscribed to the oath of office of the president twice. But, if that happens to be the interpretation that he can do another term after the next four year term, then he is also bound by his words as a matter of honour and integrity not to do a further term after the four years.”
The ruling party’s legal adviser said that the president is reading the mood of the country contrary to what his opponents are saying. “l think Mr. President must have borne in mind the need for stability of the country; you are a living witness to the agitation going on that he cannot even run at all, that the North is entitled to do their eight years before it goes to the South. So, if for any good reason the majority of the national delegates agree that he should run, and he has bound himself to a single term, l think it is enforceable against him by the party and l know the president to be a man of his words and his words would be his bond.”
On the issue of the seven-year single term, Chief Oke said that “as a lawyer, l don’t deal with speculations. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria subsisting at the moment has provision for two terms of office of four years each. So, it would be speculative for me to be debating what happens if the constitution is amended to give a single term of seven years. The debate as to whether it is desirable or not would come up when there is a motion or a bill to bring in that one.”
Also, the National Coordinator of the Goodluck Solidarity Movement (GSM), Pamson Dagyat, told Sunday Trust the debate over term of office at this time is absurd. “In any case, term of office is not the crux of the matter but the personality and mission of the leader. Atiku does not have the personality nor the right mission and can therefore not offer any,” he said.
“We in the GSM stand by the current four-year term renewable once. It is the system in tandem with democratic principles in the light of which the people reserve the exclusive right to either vote in or vote out leaders based on their performance in office,” Dagyat said.
The question political observers, especially those in the South-East which zone has predicated its bid for 2015 on the support for the president is, can Jonathan keep his word to serve just one term of four years? It is apparent that only time and not good luck will tell.
C
To his chagrin, that attempt also failed, including the one on the order of the primaries. It was as a fall-out of this that the president was eventually offered what analysts consider a face-saving one term of four years by the governors with 20 of them reportedly endorsing him. The governors declared in a communiqué a fortnight ago that they “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 development, as controversial as it turned out to be, created more questions than answers to the raging controversy within the ruling party over the zoning provision enshrined in the party’s constitution. The governors’ endorsement paved a way for another controversy which is whether President Jonathan will stick to the single four year term offered him by the governors having refused to honour the rotational power agreement adopted by the party in 2002. Apart from this, the president’s men are equally planning to push for a constitutional amendment to enforce a seven-year single term for both the president and the governors.
‘Jonathan can’t be trusted’
There is this fear from several quarters whether the president can stick to the single-term alternative provided him by the PDP governors. From politicians to the civil society organisations, the answer is in the negative citing the president’s antecedents. The campaign organisation of the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and Jonathan’s arch rival in the contest for the party’s presidential ticket, for instance, believed otherwise.
The spokesperson of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Malam Garba Shehu told Sunday Trust in an interview that it is evident that Jonathan cannot be trusted by Nigerians. “One of the strategies that Jonathan has adopted, a single term of four years, appears similar to that of Atiku. But the difference lies in the fact that whereas Atiku had made handing over to the South- East in 2015 a major plank of his strategy, Jonathan only accepted to serve for just a one term of your years by proxy in a face-saving soft landing by governors of PDP states,” the Atiku’s aide said.
He added that, “to unravel the essential President Goodluck Jonathan, one may need to go back to December 2002. On that day, Jonathan who was then Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, was in attendance at a national caucus meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by default. For whatever reason, his boss, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was not available for that meeting and had delegated him to represent him. That coincidence appears to have been a fortuitous one.
“It was at that meeting that the rotation of power between the North and South of the country was affirmed. Jonathan was the 35th signatory on the resolution of that meeting reaffirming the rotation of power between the two regions. It was expected that following the expiration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure on May 29, 2007, power would return to the North and reside there for eight years. It did with the ascendance of late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua,” Shehu said.
“However, with the demise of Yar’adua after a protracted illness on May 5, 2010, Jonathan was thrown up as an “accidental president,” thus setting the stage for a titanic battle between Jonathan who is committed to running in 2011, in negation of that PDP pact and the North,” he said.
The Atiku’s aide said that, “reading between the lines from what transpired at that last NEC meeting where Jonathan was endorsed, it was clear that the president has refused to answer the two fundamental questions: Is he ready to serve a single term? Again, which region will he hand over power to after serving the single term? We don’t need a clairvoyant to know the mindset of the president on these issues.”
‘It’s a PDP affair’
According to the National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Mr Osita Okechukwu, the situation is basically a desperate attempt by the drowning ruling party to remain in power by hook or crook.
“Jonathan’s endorsement is a PDP affair. It doesn’t concern us at the CNPP as long as the governors will allow the votes of Nigerians to count. We fervently hope that the PDP governors will arrogate themselves the inalienable right of the people for whoever they want,” he said.
The CNPP chieftain explained that the ruling party is confused, particularly with the mounting pressure from within it as well as the behemoth resistance and fight the opposition parties are poised to confront the ruling partywith in the forthcoming polls.
“The signals are clear for Jonathan and his co-travellers. The handwriting is clear on the wall that the ruling party is collapsing like a pack of cards with the recent loss and defeat in the South West by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the bourgeoning influence of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the north. The party is implementing strategies to survive beyond May 29, 2011. It is indeed an arduous task for the PDP,” Okechukwu said.
“On the issue of the single term tenure, President Jonathan should know that such opportunity is elusive for the PDP because the party is in the state of decline and apparently, cannot win the 2011 polls. It is important to take note that progressives with brooms from Lagos and pens from Sokoto have commenced the moves to sweep away the PDP. So, when is Jonathan going to implement that programme when his party itself is on the verge of implosion?”
‘Jonathan is taking Nigerians for a ride’
Also, the President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) , Malam Shehu Sani, told Sunday Trust that the president’s attempt is ridiculous and an undemocratic ploy to subvert the will of the people.
He explained that it is funny for the president and his spin doctors to believe that they can take Nigerians for a ride once again having carved a niche for himself as someone who breaks a gentleman’s agreement and doesn’t honour his words. “President Jonathan lacks the honour and integrity to be trusted for his word. His offer for a four-year-single-term is a political gimmick and enticement. It is a political deception and skulduggery aimed at neutralising the opposition within his party,” he said.
He cited the president’s summersault over zoning and rotational agreement which is an integral part of his party’s constitution as some of the reasons why Nigerians won’t take Jonathan serious on anything. “President Goodluck Jonathan on rotation of power or zoning, exposed his perfidy and vitiates any modicum of honour in his word. Whoever chooses to believe Jonathan is to be a perpetual fool,. A people led by a leader whose word is not his bond are in bondage,” Sani said.
The civil society groups are not finding the ruling party’s survival plans funny, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, told Sunday Trust. He said that “the plan has no public input and it is a part of the agenda for those who are afraid to face the electorate in free, fair and transparent elections. Periodic elections are an integral aspect of democratic rule.”
Rafsanjani said that endorsement of President Jonathan by the PDP governors itself is devoid of democratic ingredients. “There are democratic guidelines enshrined in both the Electoral Act and the political parties themselves where delegates would elect those they feel should become their flag bearers in elections. It is unfortunate that governors would arrogate themselves the powers of hoisting a candidate on the party,” he said.
The CISLAC director declared that the whole plans “are informed by the ruling party’s desperation to remain in power. For any such thing to happen, there should be a referendum where the voice of Nigerians will count. Anything short of that is only dictatorship which Nigerians will definitely rise against. After all, Nigerians are not naive in thwarting individual efforts to subject them to perpetual slavery and dictatorship having fought former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term project.
‘Jonathan is a man of his word’
But the national legal adviser of the PDP, Chief Olusola Oke, disagrees with Atiku’s camp submission. He told Sunday Trust in an interview that, “there is no law that says that a Nigerian must run two terms. How many terms you want to run within the confine of the law is entirely your own decision and it should be taken that a person in an esteemed position as that of the President of Nigeria, must be a man whose words must be his bond. So you don’t require any enforcement by law before you can hold him onto that and if he derogates from that, it means that the electorate should be able to decide that this is not a man to be trusted.”
He explained that, “it is true that at the end of another four years from now, he would have done a four-year tenure of his own – first term. Again, that also requires the interpretation of the law. The law talking about two terms- ordinarily you cannot take oath of office three times. So, it would still be a legal question- whether merely completing the tenure of President Yar’adua takes him outside the confines of somebody who has subscribed to the oath of office of the president twice. But, if that happens to be the interpretation that he can do another term after the next four year term, then he is also bound by his words as a matter of honour and integrity not to do a further term after the four years.”
The ruling party’s legal adviser said that the president is reading the mood of the country contrary to what his opponents are saying. “l think Mr. President must have borne in mind the need for stability of the country; you are a living witness to the agitation going on that he cannot even run at all, that the North is entitled to do their eight years before it goes to the South. So, if for any good reason the majority of the national delegates agree that he should run, and he has bound himself to a single term, l think it is enforceable against him by the party and l know the president to be a man of his words and his words would be his bond.”
On the issue of the seven-year single term, Chief Oke said that “as a lawyer, l don’t deal with speculations. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria subsisting at the moment has provision for two terms of office of four years each. So, it would be speculative for me to be debating what happens if the constitution is amended to give a single term of seven years. The debate as to whether it is desirable or not would come up when there is a motion or a bill to bring in that one.”
Also, the National Coordinator of the Goodluck Solidarity Movement (GSM), Pamson Dagyat, told Sunday Trust the debate over term of office at this time is absurd. “In any case, term of office is not the crux of the matter but the personality and mission of the leader. Atiku does not have the personality nor the right mission and can therefore not offer any,” he said.
“We in the GSM stand by the current four-year term renewable once. It is the system in tandem with democratic principles in the light of which the people reserve the exclusive right to either vote in or vote out leaders based on their performance in office,” Dagyat said.
The question political observers, especially those in the South-East which zone has predicated its bid for 2015 on the support for the president is, can Jonathan keep his word to serve just one term of four years? It is apparent that only time and not good luck will tell.
C
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