crown777:
Tuesday, 05 October 2010 05:52 Biodun Durojaiye
Ted Odogwu, Kano

THE drumbeat over the 2011 presidential election became louder at the weekend as former governor of the old Kaduna State, Alhaji Lawan Kaita, vowed that the North would make the country ungovernable if President Goodluck Jonathan wins the polls.

He said: “It is becoming apparent that the recent replacement of Service Chiefs is part of President Jonathan’s plan to use state apparatus to scale the 2011 presidential hurdle.

“Anything short of a Northern President is tantamount to stealing our Presidency. Jonathan has to go and he will go. Even if he uses the incumbency power to get his nomination on the platform of the PDP, he would be frustrated out.”

Kaita, founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and close ally of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, warned that the North should not be blamed for the calamity that will befall the country, if Jonathan emerges President next year.

He said: “The North is determined, if that happens, to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy.

“Feelers from the South-South clearly show that the North is not the only region that is outraged over the situation. The South-East is there grumbling and the South-South, his (Jonathan) geo-political zone, he is not sure of their support.”

Reacting to the general thinking that the minority and Christians in the North are backing Jonathan, Kaita said it was a wrong assumption.

He said: “What you may call Northern Christians are concentrated more in Benue State where they may constitute about 90 per cent. In Plateau State, if you study that carefully, the Christian/Muslim population is 60 per cent for Christians, 40 per cent Muslims, so Plateau State is not an entirely a Christian State. The only state in the North that is substantially a Christian community is Benue State.”

Nigerians, he said, should be concerned over the prevailing political situation in the country because the North will not accept any government founded on any fraudulent foundation, which, he stressed, would definitely crumble, pointing out that “it should be seen by all as a stolen mandate that must be retrieved by all means”.

Kaita expressed displeasure over the event in Owerri, the Imo State capital, where the meeting of Igbo leaders was disrupted by security agents, saying such an action simply demonstrated dictatorship and disorder, “an indication that there is danger in the country”.

While recalling that he moved the motion in 2002 for the retention of zoning that gave former President Olusegun Obasanjo a second term mandate, Kaita said Jonathan did not say the truth over his comments on zoning, stating that he (Jonathan) was physically present and voted at the caucus meeting as he represented Bayelsa State as the deputy governor then.

To him, the motion for zoning was principally for power shift “which is the presidential power. That was the essence for the zoning, all other offices were to follow”.

“Just for the sake of power, Jonathan has turned to something else, its very bad and he is losing credibility for this.”

Kaita, however, said he was happy that some notable Northerners, such as former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd); Atiku; former Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari; former National Security Adviser (NSA), Lt-General Aliyu Gusau (rtd) and a few others are in the race to represent the interest of the North.

http://www.compassnewspaper.com/NG/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68531:kaita-north-ll-make-nigeria-ungovernable-for-jonathan&catid=43:news&Itemid=799