Presidency: Sambo will assume North’s term in 2015

Thursday, 03 March 2011 00:00

Amina Alhassan & Kabiru Matazu

Senator Muhammed Abba Aji, Presidential Adviser on National Assembly matters, has made a couple of controversial comments in the last few weeks. In this interview he speaks on the ongoing presidential campaigns and the controversy over where the presidency should move to in 2015.

What is your assessment of the political outings in the last few weeks especially after the emergence of candidates?
As it turns out, President Jonathan appears to be the only one campaigning. By the end of that deadline for the substitution of candidates, INEC had about 20 presidential candidates, but out of all the 20 who have been cleared by the commission, only Jonathan is campaigning in the true sense of it. All the rest are doing nothing. May be once in a while, and not all of them, just a few, feature in the newspapers. General Buhari and Ribadu have been talking about their plans to begin campaigns. So, it’s like they are telling us that ‘they are getting ready to get ready’ and we are tired of reading about them ‘getting ready to get ready.’

Now we have just few weeks left to the presidential election and my fear is that they are all waiting to go to court (after the election) instead of going to the electorate now. If they have anything to offer, for God sake let them go to the electorate the way Jonathan has been doing.

But people believe that Jonathan is the only one who has been able to start campaign in ernest because he has unlimited access to state resources which he uses to his advantage,

That is also a disadvantage to a great extent. We must also realise he is leading this country; State affairs are cumbersome; international affairs are cumbersome, yet he is carrying out his job as president and still finding time to campaign. It’s not easy for Mr President. He just happened to be young and energetic otherwise, you know such tasks can take a toll on the physical being of an average person. Other presidential candidates are virtually jobless, they are only presidential candidates. I’m not sure of that they are doing, so what is stopping them from campaigning.

Some Nigerians say President Jonathan’s campaign is not issue-based. How do you respond to this?

I don’t believe that. His campaigns are issue based. Jonathan has always advised us to avoid personalising. He has insisted that we be issue based. You can remember that even at the Eagle Square when all the three aspirants were asked to speak, he was the only one who spoke strictly on issues.

The president has said he will not run in 2015. Do you think it will be zoned back to the North?

What will happen is very clear; Vice President Sambo will step in as soon as Jonathan finishes his tenure. We need an institutional memory in the running of government. We don’t always want to start from the beginning; we don’t always want to return to the drawing board.

Will that mean going back to zoning?

No, the court has determined that there is zoning and we have agreed, only that this time we zoned it to South-South. So in 2015, will zone it to the Northwest and give it to Sambo.

That will perhaps jettison hope of the southeast; don’t you think that will set in another crisis?

You see it is like this, it goes to the North and goes to the South. Then in the North, it goes to the Northeast, North central, and Northwest. Same thing when it goes to the South. Now, Jonathan is serving the southern term. It will come to north. When it comes, we want the institutional memory to be there. We don’t want too many dislocations or distortions that will set us one step forward, two steps backward.

Have any organ in PDP agreed on this principle, or from which point are you speaking?

From my own, it’s my personal view and it will work.

How do you intend to make it work?

I made things work before. When Ciroma and his group, ‘small group’, I most add, began to come out militantly, to say we will stop him; we will deny him; and so on. With strong words that were not expected from statesman of his age when addressing the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I personally undertook the crusade and reached out to very important northerners in almost every state, to tell them that look, Jonathan will win; that incumbency advantage is real; he is also the leader of the party and there is no party that will throw away its product.

I am a member of the national caucus. I said to them don’t allow Jonathan to win without Northern support. It will disenfranchise the North. It will save the face in the minds of future presidential candidates. The North will seem not to matter, which is very dangerous for people in my generation and those below. Ciroma and others have had their turns and now they can afford to gamble. It is a gamble that I personally stopped and many of them, open supporters of Atiku, saw reason. I said to them if you try you can’t stop them. We went all round the delegates of the north. It worked and the next one will also work.

You talk about Ciroma making statements which are not charitable but recently President Jonathan called leaders in the Southeast ‘rascals’ and it generated lots of comments from people who feel that such words should not come from someone seeking votes from that area and most importantly not from a president,

Am sure he didn’t call all of them rascals. The word rascal actually is not as bad as it sounded but at the end of the day it’s the value of the people that matters. I am sure the President has listened to comments regarding that and has taken a cue from that.

http://dailytrust.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13296:presidency-sambo-will-assume-norths-term-in-2015&catid=18:inside-politics&Itemid=19

GOD FORBID!

WE WOULD NOT HAVE PDP AGAIN. THEY HAVE DONE ENOUGH!

this is a shame of a party as well as a country.
if pdp wins, i will find a way to change my nationality. i am so so ashamed of myself as a nigerian.

^^^^^^
i am so on the same page with you right now. If PDP successfully rigs this election again I will revolt after which if unsuccessful will exile myself out of shame and aggravation. Even Ghana or Benin Rep. are looking good now because at least u will have good sleep knowing your life is much more secure plus no noisy generators.