President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday held a private meeting with the five northern governors most critical of his purported move to run for a second term in 2015 – Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), and Muritala Nyako (Adamawa).
The meeting which was held at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja lasted for several hours.
No official reason was given for the meeting, but according to sources, it was connected with the internal crisis bedeviling the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), a party all six are members of.
The President and the governors held the crucial talks just as sources said the Presidency was banking on the seeming popularity of recently freed ex-Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, in his home region of the North to initiate subtle moves to recruit him into Jonathan’s re-election campaign.
The sources said case was also being made for a role for the ex-CSO in the Jonathan government.
The overture to Al-Mustapha by the pro-Jonathan elements was, however, causing a row among some northern leaders.
Sources said the Aso Rock meeting with the five northern governors was initiated by the President to enable him listen to their grievances with a view to appeasing them and preventing them from joining the opposition.
This correspondent was also made to understand that the five governors issued conditions for peace with the party and the Presidency, one of which was insisting on the removal of the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
The crucial meeting, said to have started around noon, was held under closed doors and the outcome not made known to journalists.
During the meeting, Jonathan was said to have pleaded with the governors to sheath their sword and promised to personally look into the sources of their anger.
Jonathan reportedly assured the governors that he was aware of their face-off with some influential people close to him and the PDP and was poised to address them in the interest of the party and the country.
But the governors allegedly gave the President the condition under which they would support him and the PDP in the 2015 contest, which is that he must sack the PDP National Chairman, Tukur, with immediate effect.
The governors, according to the sources, said Tukur was their major headache and they did not see how they could continue to work with him.
They allegedly insisted that they would never have anything to do with the PDP as long as Tukur continued to preside over its affairs.
One of the sources said,”The clear message delivered to the President was that the National Chairman of the PDP, Bamanga Tukur, must be sacked urgently.
”The governors made it clear to Mr. President that the leadership of Tukur has brought an era of dictatorship to the party and alienated the major stakeholders, leaving those who do not have the interest of the party to hold sway.
”It is either the President sacks him to appease the governors and others who are with them or keeps the Chairman and loses them”.
It was also learnt that the governors had earlier met for 45 minutes at the Sokoto State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro to take a common position on what to discuss with Jonathan.
After the meeting, they proceeded to the Villa at about noon.
The governors had, last week, expressed anger with the Presidency and the PDP leadership over the way things were going in the party and the country.
They met with three former heads of state – Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar – in Abeokuta, Ogun State and Minna, Niger State, and complained to them about how they were being alienated and maltreated by the Presidency and the PDP despite their enormous contributions to the party. Although the outcome of their deliberations with the former leaders was not made public, IBB lauded the five governors and described them as ‘real patriots’.
Lamido is said to have been singled out by the Presidency for isolation for daring to declare to contest against Jonathan in 2015 while Aliyu is seen as being penalised for saying that Jonathan signed a deal with northern governors to run for only a term.
Nyako is being castigated and kept at bay for trying to contest the control of PDP structures of Adamawa with Tukur.
The Political Adviser to the President, Ahmed Gulak, had previously described the five governors as agents of the opposition and warned them to stop heating up the polity.