Jonathan Fights Back, As PDP Denies Him 2011 Ticket, May Bring Marwa, Ribadu, Azazi on Board

by Nuruddeen M. Abdallah & Sule Lazarus



May Bring Marwa, Ribadu, Azazi on Board -

This is Northâ's Golden Chance, Warns M. D. Yusuf

No Need to Invoke Section 144 to Oust Yarâ adua - J. T. Useni



> Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is poised to engage in a calculated attempt to activate his dream of taking over President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s job and, possibly, contest the 2011 presidential election, though his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared that the position will be retained by the North.
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> Sunday Trust gathered that, riding on the crest of an unalloyed support by civil society organizations, under the aegis of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the Acting President is going ahead with the implementation populist measures, to gain the sympathy and support of the Nigerian public for his ambition.
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> Some of the measures include a resolve to probe Yar’adua’s 30-month administration, the setting up of an Electoral Reform Implementation Committee to execute elements in Justice Muhammadu Uwais’ committee report, and bringing on board his administration people like Malam Nuhu Ribadu, General Muhammad Buba Marwa, Malam Nasiru el-Rufai, General Owoye Andrew Azazi, to take charge of strategic positions.
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> It is speculated that while General Marwa, at present Nigeria’s High Commission to South Africa or General Azazi may be given the National Security Adviser (NSA) portfolio, Ribadu may be asked to return to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to continue the war against corruption from where he stopped before his removal in 2009.
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> There are, however, knotty issues about these plans because General Azazi comes from the acting president’s geopolitical zone and is a Christian. Giving him such a high profile position will raise a lot of questions bordering on power sharing formula in the polity.
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> Also, Malam Ribadu, if he accepts the job, may have to live with the moral question of working for a principal whose wife, Patience, he had investigated over an allegation of money laundering and corruption in 2007.
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> This strategy is coming at a time when former Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Muhammadu Dikko Yusuf, is calling on the North to ensure it produced a credible and acceptable replacement for ailing President Yar’adua in the 2011 presidential election.
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> Alhaji Yusuf gave the charge to an elitist northern group, Unity Forum, when the group Chairman, Alhaji Musa Maigida Abdu led other members on a courtesy visit to him at the weekend.
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> The retired police chief insisted that the North must not allow the golden opportunity of producing a credible and acceptable candidate in the 2011 presidency, adding that the time to begin the search is now, and that Unity Forum had an enormous task of making the message spread fast.
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> His word: "I hope your activities (Unity Forum) would make us think and realize where we are and how we should try to put ourselves together. We are talking of the need that president should stay in the North. Okay, the PDP has zoned it to the North. If it is so, what preparations have we made to achieve that?"
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> Yusuf declared that it rested squarely on the shoulders of the forum and like to begin the political evangelism that would foster greater unity among the northerners, saying it was only then that the region can speak with one voice and take common step.
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> "Have we got candidates? Have the candidates stop fighting each other? We shall be better off choosing a candidate who would be useful to the North. We need to step up efforts as this cannot be got over night, you have to be working the way you are working, talking to each other so that if such things happen, you can come up with a list of names and we can choose from it," he said.
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> Meanwhile, a source told Sunday Trust at the weekend that though Acting President Jonathan has some big names from the North in his Presidential Advisory Council (PAC), he has not given up in his bid to become president. Some of the measures he is likely to embark upon is to make changes in the PDP, forge a new political alignment to weaken a section of the North, take control of security agencies and the army, use the anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to some political end.
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> Already, the acting president has set up a probe panel to look into the Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources, and Petroleum, and the activities of interventionist agencies like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and poverty alleviation outfit, which are headed by officials believed to be associated with President Yar’adua.