•Replace Namadi Sambo
•Create Arewa development fund
•Remove
onshore/offshore dichotomy
A cutthroat power struggle is now ongoing in the North, as
some leaders are said to have listed some conditions under which they would be
ready to support President Goodluck Jonathan‘s second term bid in 2015.
This is coming as suspicion lingers among opposition
political parties over their planned merger, due to what a source called the
sudden interest of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in the proposed grand
opposition coalition.
Sunday Tribune was reliably told that some Northern leaders
met in Kano, on Friday, after jumat to review the state of the North and the
forthcoming 2015 presidential election with actors at the meeting said to be
worried that the president‘s second term bid is almost a fait accompli, due to
distrust among Northern political leaders.
A source close to the meeting who hails from Zaria, Kaduna
State, said it was held at the residence of a Second Republic politician with
about 11 top politicians from the core North in attendance.
It was gathered that the meeting discussed the increasing division
in the North and concluded that the possibility of the region forging a common
front before 2015 was becoming increasingly unattainable, thereby advancing a
‘Plan B’ which our source said included a conditional support for the
president’s second term bid.
Actors at the meeting were said to have expressed worries
that if the North should enter the 2015 race as it were, the president may
secure his second term without any agreement or relationship with the core
North.
“The fear is we are in trouble, if the man wins again
without our organised support. We risk the top position going to the Igbo in
2019,“ the source noted.
Sunday Tribune was told that the meeting, which lasted for
two and a half hours, agreed to link up with other Northern leaders, even as
they agreed on some conditions the North should give the president, if the core
North was to back him for the Presidency in 2015.
Our source narrated that the meeting listed three main
conditions for the president, the most important of which is that he should
change his vice presidential running mate.
The meeting was said to have advised that the president
should pick his running mate from among one of the Northern governors as a way
of rallying the Northern governors behind him.
Besides, the group is also said to be canvassing for a
wholesale rebuilding of the Northern region through a federal Northern
Development Fund, in view of the Boko Haram crisis and what the source called
subsisting underdevelopment in the region.
The last of the conditions, according to the source, is a
request for presidential support for the clamour of the North for the review of
the onshore/offshore dichotomy, a division which the Northern states believe is
depriving the region of close to N40 billion monthly.
An administration source, very close to the vice-president,
who was contacted over the report, described the conditions as unrealistic,
asserting that “Vice-President Namadi Sambo has remained a loyal and effective
deputy since he came on board.
“That is wishful thinking of a faceless group. The Jonathan/
Sambo ticket is a winning team anyday.“
The source added, however, that “the president has not even
taken any decision on the second term issue.”
Meanwhile, there is still suspicion about intentions of
partners over the ongoing merger talks among the main opposition parties in the
country.
Checks within opposition circles showed that the eagerness
of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) to effect the merger is been
hampered by unresolved issues with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) as well
as fears over the real goal of the ANPP in the merger talks.
Sunday Tribune was told that both the CPC and the ACN were
wary of the renewed interest of the ANPP in the merger with some chieftains of
the CPC said to be afraid of a repeat of old ANPP feud within the planned
party.
The ANPP was said to have directly written letters to both
the CPC and the ACN, expressing its total support of the merger plan as a way
to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015. The party also reportedly
forawarded a list of its team’s members for the merger talks with former Borno
State governor,Ali Modu Sheriff, as the head.
The direct involvement of Sheriff, who is the ANPP Board of
Trustees chairman, is said to have alarmed the CPC whose chieftains reportedly
regard the former governor as a sympathiser of the ruling PDP.
A CPC chieftain, who expressed fear about the ANPP, said “we
are wary and we are looking over our shoulders because of our previous
experience with the old ANPP.“
Meanwhile, the CPC itself is battling with questions about
who made up its negotiating team, with a group within the party canvassing that
no member of the National Executive Committee or Board of Trustees should be
part of the negotiating team.
This position did not, however, go down well with some
entrenched interests within the party who believe doing that will hand over the
negotiation to the Mallam Nasir el-Rufai-led Renewal Committee.
Culled: Tribune
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