2015: Jonathan Courts North, Woos Ex-govs

SIGNALS that President Goodluck Jonathan has started plotting how to grab the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party for the 2015 election emerged on Monday with the President reaching out to respective former governors of Zamfara and Borno states, Ahmed Yerima and Ali Modu-Sheriff.

Our correspondent learnt that the President wanted the two influential politicians in their respective states to strengthen his hold in the north.

The President, a source told The PUNCH, had in fact asked the duo to defect to the PDP. The two ex-governors are members of the All Nigeria Peoples Party.

The two former governors, it was gathered, would help the President neutralise the anti-Jonathan sentiment in the north where top politicians are clamouring for power shift from the South.

The calculations in the President’s team, investigation further revealed, are that these two prominent politicians will also come to the PDP with their state governors.

The governors are said to be protégées of the former governors.

For example, Yerima was said to have single-handedly installed the incumbent governor of his state, Alhaji Abubakar Yari, after he fell out with Alhaji Mahmuda Shinkafi, who succeeded him while leaving office in 2007.

Shinkafi was Yerima’s deputy for eight years and was the only deputy governor that succeeded his boss among the 36 deputy governors in the country then.

In Borno, Modu-Sheriff was also believed to have installed the incumbent governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima.

Source