Jonathan is adopting Obasanjos’s third term style – Ciroma

Weekly Trust: The decision of the National Executive Council (NEC), of the PDP to retain zoning and at the same time, saying that President Goodluck Jonathan can contest is ambiguous and confusing. What is your take on that? Malam Adamu Ciroma: The decision taken at the National Executive committee of the PDP has been subjected […]

Weekly Trust: The decision of the National Executive Council (NEC), of the PDP to retain zoning and at the same time, saying that President Goodluck Jonathan can contest is ambiguous and confusing. What is your take on that?

Malam Adamu Ciroma: The decision taken at the National Executive committee of the PDP has been subjected to a number of interpretations, even though it was absolutely clear to those who attended the meeting and those who got the report of what took place. The meeting of the NEC actually confirmed what was discussed at the expanded meeting of the national caucus, which also discussed the decision taken at the national caucus. So there are three bodies; the national caucus, the expanded national caucus and the board of trustees, all of them discussed this matter before it finally came to the NEC and the decisions were that,

1, That any Nigerian, including the president can contest the 2011 elections. If you recollect, the meeting of the Northern Governors also made that point, which is that the president or any other Nigerian can contest the elections because the right to contest the election are guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution so, there is nothing special about this statement. But this statement was not an endorsement of any person to run. If you are in the PDP, you have to wait for the primaries, anyone who is interested to become the presidential candidate has to go through the primaries, and win it. So there is nothing special for anyone.

The second decision was that the zoning and rotation policy of the PDP was confirmed. Indeed, the national executive or any other body of the party cannot remove zoning and rotation from the party because it is in the constitution of the party. It is only the convention that can change that. What the NEC decided therefore, is that they would not initiate and move for the removal of zoning and rotation. It then means that any member of the PDP who wants to run must be in conformity with the zoning and rotation policy of the party, but if you want to run outside the PDP, you can do it.

It is very important for Nigerians and members of the party to be clear on the meaning of the decisions taken by the NEC and other bodies of the party.

Lastly, it is important to state that as at now, there is zoning and rotation in place, President Obasanjo from the South was president for eight years and it was agreed at that time that someone from the North would be president for eight years after him. Obasanjo, then chose Yar’adua to represent the North,he contested and won, but unfortunately he died. The meaning of zoning and rotation is that this period is allocated to the North. The logical thing is for someone from the North to complete it. Even if Yar’adua were alive, he would have re-contested, but now that he is dead, what remains, is to find somebody suitable from the North to complete his term. The PDP or members of the PDP from the North cannot give away this northern term to anybody else. They are not entitled. This zoning and rotation was done before anybody became president, so it is not targeted against President Jonathan or anyone else. We have nothing against him, but the right to produce the president according to PDP zoning policy belongs to the North and we think that in fairness and for the sake of justice, in conformity with an executed agreement, that the North should be allowed to produce the next president. It is not a matter of individual sympathy, it is not because the present president is already president that the agreement should be set aside. If it is set aside, it may produce some unpleasant consequences, so the issue we are worried about is the matter of implementing an agreement known, accepted and executed.

WT: The PDP says that Jonathan can contest and the contest is also open to others. In the past when People like late Abubakar Rimi contested against party wishes, he failed woefully. What is the picture like when the party says Jonathan can contest and then zoning stands while in reality the party has symphaty for the President?

Ciroma: Late Rimi tried to contest at the PDP convention and failed woefully because the party had already zoned the thing to the south. During Obasanjo’s second term some other people tried to contest and they failed woefully. In the first Rimi’s case Obasanjo was not President. In the second case Obasanjo was already President and all those who contested against him knew that it has been zoned there. Now, President Jonathan has the power incumbent and if you know what the power of incumbency means you will shudder at how people behave and grovell in the presence of incumbents. When they talk to incumbents they behave as if they are sub-humans. A lot of government appointees think it is their duty to support the president. Infact, they even try to bend the rules to support the President. It is not their duty but they do it. One can say that left to them, they are looking for the endorsement of the President. To their chagrin, none of the party organs has endorsed the President. But I fear they will try to bend the rules to ensure that the President emerges. But I believe the generality of the people in the party will act according to their good conscience and do the right thing.

WT: Recently, you talked about the possibility of a consensus among the top contenders from the north like General Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, and Aliyu Gusau among others. Given the desperation of some of them and the political circumstances, do you think it will be easy to come up with that kind of consensus so that the north will north be divided?

Ciroma: The truth is that producing a consensus candidate is not part of the democratic process. We only talked about a consensus because it is a possibility not because it is required. There is a system already in place. Everybody who wants to contest can contest the party primaries. Once the party decides who the candidate is, that is the end of the matter. When I was referring to the issue of consensus, I was not making it an important way of choosing a candidate. The laid down system of choosing a candidate is the primaries. So, whoever gets the party’s nod becomes the candidate. It was never envisaged that there will be one candidate from the north. Historically, the north has never had one candidate. It was always the primaries that produced the leader. That was what happened in 1979 and other primaries that I have been involved in.

WT: The general assumption is that the north has the demographic advantage and given the circumstances where the President is contesting from the south-south and many other aspirants from the north, the thinking is that this demographic adavantage may not favour the north during the primaries if there is no consensus.

Ciroma: No. I dont think it is going to rely on that possibility to produce a candidate. If the PDP’s zoning and rotation is followed, the PDP can only choose from northern candidates. So, the question of dividing the votes between the north and south will not arise. But the way people are trying to bend the rules this possibility you mentioned can arise. The established principle of dealing with this matter is the primaries. If people lose at the primary they have themselves to blame.

WT: Do you have the feeling that Jonathan may eventually do the right thing by upholding the zoning and rotation agreement of the PDP.

Ciroma: My feeling is based on what I observed. What I observed is that the President is acting same way Obasanjo acted in pursuit of his third term agenda. They are moving stealthily without declaring. They are creating numerous campaign bodies. They are using the national media; NTA and other media institutions to promote the candidacy of the president but they have not declared. But you know internally that they are working on a declaration. Some people say that they are using lots of resources to create these millions of campaign bodies. We have seen this before under Obasanjo and it did not succeed then. We are going to see if it will succeed this time. But it should be noted that whoever becomes the presidential candidate has a general election to face.