Lamido Supports Jonathan At Last

Nnamdi Felix/Abuja Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido’s presidential ambition is torn into shreds as PDP adopts President Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s sole candidate for the 2015 presidential election Before the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s recent adoption of President Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s sole candidate for the 2015 presidential election, not a few Nigerians were anticipating a possible Sule Lamido contest at the party’s primary election for its presidential ticket. Governor Lamido and the Jigawa State chapter of the PDP, while continuously restating their support and commitment to the ruling party, freely threw punches at President Jonathan, accusing him of failing to deliver on the promises he made to the state to secure their support at the 2011 election. They left no one in doubt that it was either a Lamido candidacy for 2015 presidential election or nothing. Buoyed by the support of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, the governor, who never publicly declared his interest to contest the 2015 presidential election, caused the top echelons of the party, as well as handlers of the President’s re-election bid, a great measure of discomfort. Even without any formal declaration of intent, it was general knowledge that Lamido had his eyes fixed on the nation’s top job. He threw the party hierarchy into panic mode following his rejection of the then controversial endorsement of President Jonathan by the north-western zone of the party, putting leaders of the zone under pressure as they battled to rid the endorsement of the growing controversies. Conveners of the stakeholders’ meeting where Jonathan’s endorsement was read in a communique, went into a frenzy, dishing out threats to Lamido and threatening to make public the tape recording of the event to show that the governor, represented by his deputy, Alhaji Ahmad Mahmud, participated in the communique drafting process at the meeting. [caption id="attachment_10891" align="aligncenter" width="254"] •Governor Sule Lamido[/caption] The Deputy Governor wasted no time in replying the President’s men as he insisted that neither he nor members of the Jigawa State PDP knew the content of the communique that was read after the stakeholders meeting. “We are not part of the decision. We didn’t know the content of the communiqué read after the PDP Northwest meeting in Kaduna. We, the government and people of Jigawa State are not in support of the content of the communiqué read after the zonal meeting, where it was announced that President Jonathan has been endorsed for a second term.” The secretary of the state chapter of party, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed Tukur, equally dismissed the controversial endorsement, stating that no one was endorsed by anybody at the stakeholders’ expanded meeting. Lamido heightened the anxiety at the Presidency over his suspected ambition, causing the President’s godfather and Ijaw national leader, Chief Edwin Clark, to call on the governor to drop his presidential ambition. Clark went hysterical, calling the governor a “corrupt public officer” who is not qualified to succeed President Jonathan and warning him to abstain from making further comments against the President. Such were the anxieties which Lamido’s suspected ambition brought upon the President and his handlers. But all that is history now! The usual bounce in Lamido’s gait and his bolstered confidence were all missing from the picture of the governor as he was singularly recognised and requested to stand up, by the Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, at the party’s NEC meeting where the President was adopted as the party’s sole Presidential candidate. Lamido, who is known to be very vocal and noted for his knack for activism, could not find his voice at the occasion. He only raised his hands in complete surrender and gave Jonathan the thumbs-up sign in support of the intricately woven political compromise and horse-trading that gave rise to the President’s adoption as the party’s sole candidate. The governor did not oppose the adoption. Lamido had stayed away from the meeting of the PDP Governors which preceded the NEC meeting where the President was adopted but was said to have been courted by his Niger State counterpart and Northern Governors Forum chairman, Babangida Aliyu, who is known to enjoy his confidence. Party sources attribute the Jigawa governor’s acceptance of the party’s decision on President Jonathan’s sole candidacy to Aliyu, who reportedly told Lamido that President Jonathan had accepted to abide by all the commitments he made to Jigawa people during his first outing in 2011. Governor Aliyu is said to have convinced Lamido that commitments had been extracted from the President over some of the issues which the Jigawa governor was complainig about. Top on the list of the commitments said to have been extracted from the President for Lamido is the refund of the sum of N15 billion which Lamido claimed he expended by to build the Dutse International Airport, a project which Jonathan’s presidency promised to undertake but failed. Others include the immediate construction of the Auyo Irrigation Project, which was started by the Shagari Administration but later abandoned, as well as the construction of a major road in the state to connect the state-owned university at Kafin Hausa, as a means of appeasing the governor and his people. On the outside, Lamido’s capitulation and abandonment of his presidential ambition, at least on the platform of the PDP, appear to have been motivated by the commitment said to have been extracted from the President to fulfil his 2011 promises to Jigawa State which the President declined to execute after receiving the Jigawa people’s vote. This is plausible. However, the yet-to-be concluded investigation by the Department of State Service, DSS, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, into the circumstances surrounding a N10 billion found in the accounts of companies belonging to the governor’s family, which sources alleged was traced to the Jigawa State treasury, may have come handy in muscling out Lamido in the 2015 election manoeuverings. Lamido’s sons, Aminu, a 2010 graduate of Mass communication of Bayero University, Kano and Mustapha, an alumni of the University of Abuja, were arrested in furtherance of the investigation which the anti-graft agency commenced in December 2012 when Aminu Lamido was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport en route Cairo;, Egypt, for failing to declare the $50,000 he had on him. He was prosecuted and convicted by a federal high court in Kano while the anti-graft agency continued with investigations to unravel how Aminu came by the money. The investigations uncovered a web of money laundering where billions of naira were reportedly laundered from Jigawa government treasury into the accounts of companies run by the Jigawa governor and his two sons. Findings by the operatives of the EFCC indicate that an estimated N10 billion was transferred from Jigawa government accounts into accounts of some companies in which the governor and his children have interests, begining in 2007 when the governor assumed office. The companies were listed as Bamaina Aluminium Ltd, Bamaina Holdings Ltd, Bamaina Company Nigeria Ltd, Rawda Integrated Services Ltd, Speeds International Ltd and Saby Integrated Nigeria Ltd. The EFCC, among others, claimed that the accounts of these companies received huge cash inflows from the state government treasury between 2007 and 2013. Bamaina Aluminium, where the governor and his sons are directors, for instance, was found to have received the sum of N1.52 billion between January 2010 and August 2013 while Bamaina Holdings Ltd’s account. of which the governor is the sole signatory, received the sum of N1.19 billion between 2007 and July 2013. All these sums were received directly from the state government’s accounts in some commercial banks. Governor Lamido’s spokesman, Mr. Umar Kyari, who reportedly spoke from Dubai on the governor’s support for the adoption of President Jonathan as PDP’s sole candidate, insisted that the governor never had any disagreement with Jonathan on the issue of running for the same office. According to him, Lamido had never declared any intention to challenge Jonathan in the Presidential race and blamed the governor’s admirers, who he said were satisfied with Lamido’s brilliant performance in Jigawa State, for rooting for his candidacy in the hope that he could replicate same if he becomes the President of Nigeria. “It must be made abundantly clear that Governor Lamido has never told anyone that he was going to challenge Jonathan in the presidential election in 2015,” he stressed. Many Nigerians however believed that Lamido’s opposition to the North-West’s endorsement of President Jonathan for a second term was a clear indication that the Jigawa governor was also interested in the office and saw such endorsement of President Jonathan by his own zone as a stumbling block to his own 2015 political ambition. To such people, the dramatic change in the governor’s earlier position, leading to his presence at the PDP’s NEC meeting where the President was not just endorsed but adopted as sole candidate, with the governor being called upon to stand up in the glare of all present to show his support for the President’s adoption, had more than meets the eye. Jigawa State officials, since the governor’s dramatic change have been shouting at the top of their voices claiming that Lamido had insisted that he would only support the President if he fulfilled his campaign promises to the state and not that he wanted to replace him as some persons were insinuating, yet the issue of his family’s involvement in the alleged N10 billion money laundering scam for which senior officials of some commercial banks were recently detained by the DSS, has refused to die. Many are quick to point at the matter as the reason behind the governor’s decision to abandon his 2015 presidential ambition. Basking in the euphoria of the prospect of an unchallenged contest for the party’s presidential ticket, the party inadvertently cast a cloud of uncertainty over Vice-President Namadi Sambo’s fate when it held that Sambo’s candidacy for the 2015 election was dependent on President Jonathan. This forced the rumour mill to work, with speculations falling upon the other that the forces against the Vice-President’s candidacy, suspected to be spearheaded by Katsina’s Governor Ibrahim Shema, may have succeeded. The party however, quickly took steps to shut down the rumour mill as the party’s national publicity secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, cleared the air over Sambo’s fate, stating that the PDP has “overwhelming confidence in a winning team that has demonstrably transformed Nigeria in less than four years, despite challenges”, adding that there was no doubt whatsoever that the Vice-President has the implicit confidence of the President: “The PDP is therefore very pleased that the President and Vice-President are working together in actualising the transformation agenda to the popular acclaim of both Nigerians and the international community.” Part of Metuh’s statement over the speculations about the Vice-President reads: “We wish to place on record as well that the 66th NEC (National Executive Committee) meeting of our great party, which endorsed President Jonathan as the sole candidate of the PDP for the 2015 general election, responsibly reasoned and this decision on the outstanding performance of the Jonathan presidency of which Vice-President Sambo is an integral part of. This motion which was unanimously endorsed by NEC left no room for any form of speculation, as Senator Jim Nwobodo, who seconded it, expressly commended both thePresident and his deputy for lifting the banner of the PDP very high, while praying the NEC to approve the motion.” As things stand now in the party, there is no opposition to President Jonathan flying the party’s flag at the 2015 presidential election.