Jonathan lays siege to Lagos for votes
NewsMar 21, 2011

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor & Abdulwahab Abdulah
President Goodluck Jonathan was yesterday night locked in a closed door meeting with senior Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, members and some elected political office holders from the South-West in Dodan Barracks, Lagos.
The meeting, Vanguard learnt, was aimed towards resolving the multiple crises in some of the states in the region.
Among major stakeholders at the meeting which was ongoing at press time were the erstwhile Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Bode George; Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State; Chief of Staff to the President, Chief Mike Oghiadohme; Lagos State gubernatorial candidate of the party, Dr. Ade Dosunmu among others.
Sources told Vanguard yesterday that the President was determined to resolve the crisis in the region as a way of boosting the party’s fortunes in the region which are presently threatened by the upsurge of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN in the region.
“We want to see how we can go into the election as a united body,” a source present at the meeting said last night.
It was learnt that the President could be staying in Lagos for the next two days to resolve the crises in the states.
The major contending groups within the party include the Establishment Group, headed by George: the Solidarity Group, headed by the High Commissioner to Ghana, Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro and the Mandate Group, under the leadership of the former Minister of Works and Housing, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe.
Other minor groups include the ‘Alagbon 14’ Forum of Local Government Candidates and the Elders’ Forum.
The Bode George group, however, is the group controlling the machinery of the party in Lagos State based on the political experience of George’s and his carriage of the party supporters.
Apart from Lagos, the party is also sharply split in Ogun and Oyo States. In Ogun State, supporters of Governor Daniel recently decamped as a group to the Peoples Party of Nigeria, PPN.
President Jonathan it is believed, is desirous of uniting the party as a way of giving the party and himself a sizeable proportion of the estimated 15 million votes expected from the region.
The major presidential candidates are targeting the voters rich regions of the Northwest and Southwest in the hope of taking pole position in the forthcoming April 9 presidential election.

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