By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Amid raging controversy and denials, former Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, may be plotting a comeback.
An online media report had quoted a former aide of Jonathan, Reuben Abati, as ‘confirming’ that his ex-principal, Goodluck Jonathan, is set to join the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Abati was also quoted to have said that Jonathan would declare for the 2023 presidency on the platform of the ruling party.
But there were throwbacks to the contrary yesternight as some expressed the belief that the ex-president might be staging an equivalent of “mother of betrayals” if he turns his back on the party that made him, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Fresh angle
There were reports that the former president had given the APC a condition that he would only join the party if he would get an automatic ticket to run for president in 2023.
Just yesterday, some protesters stormed his Abuja office, demanding he contests in the forthcoming presidential election.
Jonathan, while addressing the protesters said, “Yes, you are calling me to come and declare for the next election, I cannot tell I’m declaring. The political process is ongoing, just watch out.”
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Jonathan’s condition
Jonathan, according to reports, will only be joining the APC presidential race on the condition that he is endorsed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
One of his aides was quoted to have said anything short of this would not be acceptable to Jonathan who had served as deputy governor, governor, vice-president, and president on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) between 1999 and 2015.
In February, some northern emirs reportedly reached out to the ex-president, asking him to contest. Jonathan had by then stayed away from activities of the PDP, including the last national convention.
It was reported that former Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State had also stated that it was unlikely that Jonathan was still a member of the PDP, as he was no longer involved in the party’s activities.
On Thursday, however, Jonathan’s posters flooded the national secretariat of the APC on Blantyre Street, Wuse 2, Abuja.
On Friday, youth and women groups demonstrated outside of Jonathan’s office in the Maitama area of Abuja.
The demonstrators, who arrived in five large buses, held up placards some of which read, ‘Jonathan, Please Run’, ‘Jonathan, do the needful’, ‘Jonathan for 2023’, ‘Jonathan Declare Now’, and ‘Goodluck Please Come Back, We Love You’.
A spokesman for the group, Mayor Samuel, who is also the Convener of the Youth Compatriots of Nigeria, said, “We were deceived and brainwashed by those who claimed they could do it in 2015.
“Now, we know better, under Jonathan the minimum wage could buy one or two bags of rice. What do we have today? We are begging President Jonathan to forgive us, we have realised our mistakes; we want him back to complete what he started.”
Jonathan subsequently invited the leaders of the protesters for a private meeting. After the brief meeting, the ex-president addressed the demonstrators outside, advising the youths to run for office instead, adding that the constitution had been amended as far back as 2018 to give youths a chance to contest
However, a top source in the APC disclosed that Jonathan was seeking assurance that he would be handed the party’s presidential ticket.
Speaking under anonymity, the APC chieftain was quoted as saying, “Jonathan has already been president before. So, the APC cannot offer him anything except the presidential ticket. Imagine him contesting against Osinbajo and Tinubu and losing? Wouldn’t that be disgraceful?
“So, he has made his position clear. If he is to come to the APC, he must be given the assurance that he will be given the party’s ticket. That is his demand.”
The source added that the former president may be sold as a “compromise candidate” amid the raging zoning debate in the country.
“Jonathan is the only Nigerian alive that can promise to serve only one Presidential term and abide by it because he is limited by the constitution. If he serves one term, then power returns to the North. It is also not an easy decision but I can assure you that President Buhari will have no qualms with a Jonathan Presidency,” he added.
Reports say that the APC National Working Committee might consider giving some special waivers to select aspirants based on the powers conferred on it by the National Executive Committee (NEC).
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Section 31.3 of the new APC constitution titled ‘waiver’, reads in part, “Subject to the approval of the National Executive Committee, the National Working Committee may, in special circumstances, grant a waiver to a person seeking a national party official, who is otherwise not qualified under this constitution if, in its opinion, such a waiver is in the best interest of the party.
“Subject to the approval of the National Executive Committee, the National Working Committee may, in special circumstances, grant a waiver to a person seeking the office of President, Vice President, governor, deputy governor, senator, member of the House Representatives, who are otherwise not qualified under this constitution if, in its opinion, such a waiver is in the best interest of the party.”
The Electoral Act states that anyone contesting a presidential election must be a member of a political party which will sponsor him as a candidate. However, both the constitution and the Electoral Act do not prohibit non-party members from participating in a primary.
However, according to a member of the party’s NEC, waivers would be on a case-by-case basis.
A source close to the former president said he (Jonathan) will “seriously consider” contesting for the presidency in 2023 if he gets the firm assurance of President Muhammadu Buhari, to “smoothen the path for him”.
Lobbyists are said to be rallying around political blocs in the North to persuade northern elites to support their alleged presidential bid of Jonathan.
Also, some northern monarchs have reportedly begun lobbying Jonathan to defect to the APC and contest for the presidency following the ongoing debate of zoning between the north and the south.
A source told ThisNigeria that the reason the northern leaders have suddenly picked interest in Jonathan is that if given the mandate, he has only one term to rule after which power will return to the north.
“The debate on the rotational presidency is overheating the polity, and some powerful blocs in the north are of the view that a Jonathan presidency under the platform of APC will be a stabilising factor for the country. So, the serious lobby is currently ongoing to actualise that plot under the ruling party,” he said.
But pundits are of the view that Jonathan will be a hard sell for APC because the APC had demonised him, hounded him, and called him incompetent, among others.
Also, potential rivals of presidential candidates are likely to give the ex-president a hard time.
Tinubu had during the build up to the 2015 election called on Jonathan to resign following the spate of insecurity.
‘’I saw the sea of refuges and the lies coming from Jonathan’s administration. They have exhibited failure, lack of capacity, vision, creativity; the lie of yesterday is what they repeat today and it is what they will repeat tomorrow. They are lying to you. They are lying about the security; toying about the security of this country. I don’t have time to explain the logic of their lies.”
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“But if you control the armed forces and you are the Commander-in-Chief of the armed of the federal republic, why should any part of this country be under occupation? And you give us excuses every day. In any civilized country Jonathan should resigned. But if he will not resign he should wait for our broom we will sweep them,” Tinubu said during APC campaign in Kwara State.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who is running for the presidency, is also not likely to welcome Jonathan’s comeback bid.
Though he is coming to the race on the plank of South-South solidarity, Amaechi had run down the legacy of the Jonathan years with an allegation of incompetence and misgovernance.
It was learnt that there had been pressure on Jonathan to defect to the APC and run for president in 2023 on the ruling party’s platform.
Some APC chieftains, including governors, were said to have visited Jonathan at his Abuja residence last November on his 63rd birthday.
The APC team’s visit was led by the then chairman of Caretaker/Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Mai Mala Buni.
It was learnt that some APC cabal had also been impressed that despite what is widely perceived as the Buhari government’s glaring failure, Jonathan had not openly criticised his successor or his administration, much unlike ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Early in the year, there were reports that there were moves to pair Jonathan with Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, for the 2023 presidential ticket.
Governor el-Rufai had thrown his weight behind having Nigeria’s next president emerge from the southern part of the country.
In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service last August, El-Rufai said, “The southern part of the country is supposed to produce the president come 2023; I don’t support a northerner to vie for the seat after President Muhammadu Buhari, based on Nigeria’s political arrangement.”
Though El-Rufai described the power shift arrangement among the country’s various regions as unconstitutional, he said it was a political design that must be respected.
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•Why his return will not fly, Otubanjo, others’ advice
A retired professor of Political Science at the University of Ibadan (UI), Femi Otubanjo, said though the ex-president has the right to contest for the presidency, there is a problem with the platform for him to do so.
According to the university don, “Goodluck Jonathan was a former president on the platform of the PDP, and to this moment, he has not renounced his membership of the PDP. People, in their mischief and political manoeuvring, have decided to come and get him involved. So many groups will start talking, but it does not matter. I can assure you that the most important element in the choice of president in any election is the incumbent President.
“Most political parties are beholden to the President and it is whatever he says that they will go, there is nobody that can challenge it- that is the way it has been.
“So, don’t let us deceive ourselves, if the President wants Jonathan, of course, he would come up but if there are groups who are trying to manoeuvre the President to frustrate the Bola Tinubu agenda, which appears to be an agenda that was set before 2015 because Tinubu would have been Buhari’s deputy if not for the Muslim/Muslim ticket.
“Knowing the role Tinubu played in the establishment of APC and the funding of Buhari’s presidential election, there is reason to believe that when Buhari finishes he would hand it over to Tinubu.
According to Otubanjo, “that is a more viable proposition than the Jonathan one. What is Jonathan going to offer APC that will make them need him so badly? Is it his popularity in the North, South-West, South-South, or South-East?
“What will be the advantage of the APC fielding Jonathan that they will go and call him from his semi-political retirement, force him to defect to the PDP, which will be a shameful thing to do for a man of his status because it will smear his legacy for life.”
Also, a chieftain of the PDP, Chief Bode George, said in a recent interview with ThisNigeria, “We know that those who want to use him will throw all kinds of things at him like bait, but we appeal to ex-President Jonathan to drop that proposal like a hot potato.
“Jonathan is part of the founding fathers of the PDP and he rose to that level. I recall that after winning a governorship election in Bayelsa in 2007, somehow fate landed the vice-presidency on his lap, and he became the President on this same platform. He rose to the highest level in this country through this platform and if, for any reason, I want to appeal to him to drop it like a hot potato.
“This is the time this nation needs the best in power. Jonathan should just quietly back off no matter how they try to woo him. What is he going back there to do? I hope all our people in this country should be able to talk to him, from the humble beginning, God anointed him, so he should respect himself. He has done his part and he should be waiting for God’s righteousness.”
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Meanwhile, the APC does not think Jonathan as a president would have any magic wand to resolve the security logjam in the country if he comes back.
APC spokesman, Lai Mohammed maintains his earlier stance that President Jonathan ‘deliberately’ inflamed the Boko Haram crisis.
According to him, the former president ‘allowed’ the Boko Haram crisis to fester because he and his team saw it as their trump card for winning re-election in 2015 by currying local and global sectarian sympathy with a Muslim-group-killing-Christians narrative that distorts the fact that Boko Haram is a band of marauders who have no consideration for ethnicity, regionalism, religion or any other thing beyond their mad disposition to terror.
Denial
Meanwhile, former aides of President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday denied viral social media reports to the effect that Jonathan was set to declare his aspiration to run for the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the APC.
Reno Omokri and Reuben Abati, who served in different capacities in the Jonathan administration communication units, disputed the declaration claims that were remarkably traced to Abati..
