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.
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!