‘If Jonathan’s Ambition Will Tear The Country Apart, Let It Happen’

A political mobilization and pressure group, Nigeria Mandate 2015, has declared that no amount of pressure from the G-7 governors can stop President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting and winning the 2015 presidential elections.

The national coordinator of the group, Ntufam Ojong Okonjor, who made this known on Tuesday in Calabar, the Cross River State capital said, “without the so-called G7 governors, Jonathan will win. He did not win election based on the G7 governors, it was Nigerians from different walks of life, who voted him to be president.

“When the president contested in 2011, all those G7 states, apart from Rivers and Adamawa, did not vote for the president. They all voted for the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). Were they sincere? No. Infact, they committed a crime against the party and were supposed to be expelled from the party right from the time they failed to canvass votes for the president,” he said.

The G-7 governors comprising of Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and Sule Lamido (Jigawa) have been locked in a battle with the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, and the presidency over issues bordering on control of party structures in their various states, removal of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as National Chairman of the party and President Jonathan’s purported one term pact with some PDP governors prior to the 2011 general elections among others.

But Ojong, who is the Board chairman of Cross River Broadcasting Corporation, CRBC, vowed that his group would not relent in its efforts to ensure President Jonathan deployed every means possible to actualize his reelection bid come 2015.

He said while his organization supported good governance, it would ensure that Mr. Jonathan does not jettison his ambition as such opportunity would never come again for the South-South.

“We, in the South-South, will never allow any other group to produce president of Nigeria, because if we do, when will the turn of South-South come again? It will never come so easily and soon.  If President Jonathan’s second term ambition will tear the country apart, let it happen.  We object to vehemently to Jonathan thinking of jettisoning it.

“If you chronicle the list of all those who have been in power, you will notice that all of them had their second terms. The constitution of the country guarantees his ambition. He has constitutional right to gun for and accomplish his second term,” he said.

On the proposed National Dialogue, Ntufam Okonjor said it was not the solution to the country’s problems, but a way forward.

“It will create an atmosphere where everybody will come to the table and argue equitably.

“However, I think Nigeria’s problems lie in the hands of Nigerians themselves, but at the conference, discussants should strongly discourage the continual recycling of the old war horses, whose presence in government continually make the poor poorer. These people perpetually keep juicy government positions to their children, even to those yet unborn,” he added.

- SOURCE: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE