President
Goodluck Jonathan and his top aides are said to be developing
strategies to stop the increasing popularity of the All Progressives
Congress in the South-West and parts of the North-East and North-West.
High-ranking Aso Rock officials told The PUNCH
in Abuja, on Sunday, that this informed a recent meeting between
President Goodluck Jonathan and his strategists in the Presidential
Villa.
One of the sources said that the meeting
reviewed how Nigerians across the six geo-political zones might vote
in 2015 and concluded that the electons, especially the Presidential
poll, would be keenly contested.
The source added that Jonathan and the
strategists agreed that the APC had a firm grip on the South-West and
therefore resolved that concrete measures should be adopted to woo the
zone.
One of the measures, according to him,
is to allocate the position of the governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria or the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, to
the South-West.
It was learnt that those at the meeting
were in unison that giving either of the two positions would go a long
way in countering the allegation of marginalisation being levelled
against the Jonathan administration by the people of the zone.
The source said, “We knew that many
people voted for the PDP during the presidential election in 2011
because of the President’s popularity and not because of the party he
represented.
“This was the reason why the President won in four out of the six states in the South-West.
“With the alignment of the forces
against the PDP and the President across the country, especially in the
zone (South-West) now, we need to work hard to gain their confidence.
“It was also agreed that to curry
political favour of the people of the zone, the President needed to
cede either of the two positions (CBN governor and CG of Customs) to
the zone.”
Another Aso Rock source said, “You must
agree that we also need to do extra work in the North-East and
North-West where our party’s popularity is waning to get as many
people as possible on our side.”
He added that there were fears in the Presidency that the presidential election might go into run-off.
Efforts to get the Presidency’s reaction
did not yield any result on Sunday as the Special Adviser to the
President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, could not be reached on the
telephone.
A former Minister of Transport and
Aviation, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, however, said that it was wrong
to blame the alleged maginalisation of the South-West on the Jonathan
government.
Babatope said, “We the elders of the
zone are not resting and I know that very soon, the President would do
something about it.
“The position of CBN governor is still
open and that of the CG of Customs is there. However, we must blame the
former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for colluding with
some members of the PDP in the House of Representatives to deny the
South-West of the position of the Speaker.”
Babatope also accused the CBN Governor,
Mallam Sanusi Lamido, of trying to incite the public, especially the
opposition, against the PDP and Jonathan, through his statements on the
alleged missing money at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
He alleged that within a week, Sanusi had quoted different figures of between $49 and $20bn as the amount involved.
The former minister said that if not
that Sanusi would be leaving office in few months’ time, it would not be
out of order to press for his removal for portraying himself as
somebody unfit to hold such a sensitive office.
He said, “It is disheartening and highly
embarrassing for the governor of the CBN be contradicting himself like
that. Look at how he was raving before the Senate few days ago that the
actual money that was missing was $20bn. The same man had initially
quoted different figures of $49 and $12bn respectively.
“Imagine the CBN boss coming out to say
that $49bn was missing in a government agency like the NNPC and you
expect people not to ask questions? They will even come to the
conclusion that it was the PDP government that stole the money for
elections. Some people will instigate innocent Nigerians to take to the
streets based on false information”.
Meanwhile, the PDP said on Sunday that
it was shocked by statements credited to a former Vice- President ,
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, that the party was Nigeria’s problem.
The PDP said in a statement by its
National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, that while it
recognised the rights of Nigerians to hold opinions and identify with
political platforms of their choice, it found it very difficult to
understand Abubakar ‘s bitterness.
Metuh said, “It is common knowledge that
the private sector has been immensely successful in the last two years
under the PDP-led administration owing to the continued implementation
of our manifesto and policies including the continuation of the PDP
ideology of transfer of wealth from public institutions to the private
sector.
“This is the hallmark of the PDP-led
Federal Government wherein hardworking private individuals are now
thriving in manufacturing, trade, commerce and other critical sectors of
the economy.”
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