•Jonathan:

Council of Former Councillors of Northern Nigeria (CFCNN), has promised to work for the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan in the forthcoming general elections.

This is contained in a communiqué signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the group, Umar Aliyu and David Duniya respectively at the end of its one-day meeting in Kano on Tuesday.

According to the communiqué, the decision by the group to support Jonathan’s re-election was borne out of the Federal Government’s effort to transform the education and agricultural sectors.

“Nigerians are already familiar with the rapid transformation going on in the education sector, with the unprecedented increase in the number of universities.

“We are not also unaware of the modernisation of airports and revolution in agriculture,’’ it said.

According to the communiqué, the administration of President Jonathan has also upgraded hospitals and the telecommunications sector in addition to gains in the Foreign Direct Investment and rebasing of the economy.

“After consultations, we have come to the conclusion that we will devote all our democratic efforts to supporting President Jonathan’s return to office in 2015.

“This is with a view to enabling him to continue with the programmes and projects he is executing; after all government is a continuum’’, the communiqué said.

The group commended the administration for allowing freedom of speech and urged politicians not to overheat the polity.

“We condemn in totality recent utterances by some politicians which are capable of derailing our democracy.’’

The group commended INEC for shifting the elections and called on the commission to ensure that no Nigerian was disenfranchised