As the reconciliatory efforts being made to pacify aggrieved northern members of the PDP who broke away recently to form the New PDP seems to hit the rock, president Goodluck Jonathan is said to be devising alternative options to pacify the northerners through the former military president former military President, Ibrahim Babangida (IBB).
President Jonathan is said to be seeking IBB’s support among the northerners to augment his 2015 reelection into office.
According to an exclusive information from reliable sources, that the President is now making efforts to enlist the support of Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT), Tony Anenih, and Chairman of telecoms firm, Globacom, Mike Adenuga Jr, to persuade the retired general.
Besides, Jonathan is said to be using the governorship ambition of Babangida’s son, Mohammed, as a bait to lure him to support his ambition.
The aggrieved party leaders, including the six governors from the north, are already solidifying the PDP faction, “New PDP” created during the party’s special mini-convention penultimate Saturday which is now being led by Abubakar Kawu Baraje as the chairman.
Babangida, who has been calling for the adoption of two-party system and the need for the ruling party to pick the right candidate for the 2015 Presidential election has been seen as “a more liberal northerner than other northern leaders that have become very hawkish”.
It was revealed that Jonathan opted out for the idea of reaching out to the former military president after the reconciliation attempts led by the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo ultimately seems to have failed.
Jonathan is said to have assigned Anenih to reach out to a retired Brigadier-General Halilu Akilu who was also Babangida’s former security chief as well as Mike Adenuga, a confirmed business associate of the former military President,
This is aimed at pacifying the northerners over the insistence that Jonathan signed a pact to rule for only a term as part of an reached prior to his election in 2011.
However, the Presidency sources insisted that Jonathan was not ready to sacrifice his “constitutional right to vote and be voted” for in elections as a result of “nebulous agreements.”
“How that will work out remains to be seen. But the thinking in the Presidency is that support for Mohammed’s ambition could be used to persuade Babangida to support President Jonathan’s ambition.
“The only snag there is that opposition to the President’s ambition has become a Northern project and it remains to be seen how Babangida will agree to abandon the North.
“The overwhelming feeling in the North is that the President betrayed their trust by reneging on his agreement to serve only one term and therefore they cannot trust him,” the source disclosed.
It was also learnt that the plans to persuade Babangida was reached as an option to counter Obasanjo’s influence in the New PDP after the Presidency discovered that “Obasanjo was the ‘godfather’ of the promoters of the New PDP”. Babangida, it is argued, could be used as a counterpoise to Obasanjo’s influence.
The source confirmed that Babangida, and former national chairman of the party, Ahmadu Ali held a closed-door meeting with Goodluck Jonathan in the Villa and the meeting was later expanded to accommodate other PDP chieftains, Governors and other stakeholders with Obasanjo in attendance.
Meanwhile, Tukur-led National Working Committee of the party made a move to install new caretaker committee in Kano state after the executives’ tenure expired but the move was rebuffed by the presidency on the grounds that it will further aggravate the crises within the PDP.
Sources also said it was aimed at dividing the PDP supporters in the state, as the governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso is a confirmed aggrieved member of the opposition faction of the party who also seeks the sack of Tukur from the party’s chairmanship.
It was revealed that installation of the caretaker committee in Kano was supposed to be witnessed by stakeholders including the likes of former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’aba, Aminu Wali, Nigerian Ambassador to China and among others.