“He signed as number 37″: The ‘North’ says it has evidence Jonathan gave away 2015 Six Northern organisations, including the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) have insisted that the North must produce the nation’s President in 2015. The ACF, the NEF, Arewa Reawakening Forum, Arewa Research and Development Project, Northern Union and the Code Group , said at a news conference in Kaduna, that an existing agreement that the Presidency should return to the region must be strictly followed. NEF spokesman and former Adviser on Food Security to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, who spoke for the groups, warned that if the parties to the pact failed to adhere to it, the North would use its numerical strength to ensure that it gets what it wants in 2015. “The North is determined and is insistent that the leadership of this country will rotate to it in 2015 and I am making that very very clear to you (journalists), Abdullahi said. “The North on the basis of one man, one vote can keep power indefinitely in the present Nigerian state. If it is on the basis of one man, one vote, demography shows that the North can keep power as long as it wants because it will always win elections,” he added. Abdullahi, in an obvious attempt at presenting the picture of a united region, said the Middle Belt Forum and other groups in the region were clear in their calls for a Northern President in 2015. Abdullahi again made the argument that it was morally wrong for President Goodluck Jonathan to contemplate contesting in 2015 is spite of this so-called ‘pact’. Concerning this pact, Abdullahi mentioned former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Jonathan as among those who signed this mysterious document. “He (Obasanjo) was the first to sign. This particular President (Jonathan) was there as deputy governor representing the then governor of Bayelsa State. He signed as number 37. It was found in the document,” the NEF spokesman claimed. Narrating further, he said it all started with the agitation for a third term bid by Obasanjo. “We had agreed that the South will have eight years and then, the North will have eight years but when Obasanjo saw some loopholes, he tried to abandon the zoning as well as the constitution to seek third term,” the former presidential adviser alleged. President Umaru Yar’adua spent only two and half years instead of the agreed eight. An injustice according to Abdullahi. When reminded of Chief Edwin Clark’s insistence that Jonathan must rule in 2015, Abdullahi, in a comment likely to court controversy, said that the South-South where Clark hails from is “a tiny enclave of a few people, perhaps not bigger than Kaduna State.” Left to him, the North would dominate the nation’s political turf if not for the voluntary sacrifices it continues to make. He said that the region would pick a competent person from either “the core-north or Middle Belt” as a presidential candidate. The Presidency was quick to respond to Abdullahi. In very simple terms, Nigerians, not elders as represented by Abdullahi, would decide who rules Nigeria in 2015. Presidential special adviser Ahmed Gulak said Abdullahi was not a representative of the North, and while Abdullahi and his group had the constitutional right not to vote for Jonathan, others also had the right to vote for him. Did they really make that pact? [Vanguard]
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 07:05:15 +0000
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