2015: Jonathan divides North

Prominent political stakeholders from the North were at the weekend divided in their response to the renewed bid by elder-statesman Chief Edwin Clark to position President Goodluck Jonathan for another term in office in 2015.
While nearly all of them including those who vehemently opposed the president in his 2011 bid showed outrage over the renewed campaign, they nevertheless disagreed among themselves on a common position with some vowing that they would meet the President on the field in 2015.

Some of the Northern leaders also revealed that a prominent Ijaw leader pledged on his knees before northern leaders prior to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP presidential primaries of 2011 that Jonathan would only serve a single term if supported by the Northern leaders.
The Ijaw leader who supposedly made the plea could not be reached last night and was said to be with the President at a function when Vanguard sought his opinion.
The PDP which controls power at the federal level has itself dismissed the renewed clamour, describing it as a distraction for the party and the president.
Chief Clark had at a press conference on the eve of his 85th birthday last Thursday, given vent to a second term for President Jonathan, the first person from the South-South geopolitical zone to lead the country. He based his claim on the fact that all other leaders of the country were not constrained in the bid for a second term.
Northern political leaders with the connivance of some Southern politicians had vehemently opposed Jonathan’s bid in 2011 on the basis of what they claimed as an infringement of the PDP’s zoning configuration. Among the most prominent vocal groups was the Northern Leaders Political Forum, NPLF led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma, a former Minister of Finance.

VANGUARD