The continuous power struggle ahead of the 2015 presidential election took a different dimension on Saturday, when Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger state disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan signed an agreement with the PDP Governors to rule for just one term.
Aliyu, did not hold back his breathe on the matter while being interviewed on Liberty FM on Saturday morning. DailyPost stumbled on the audio version of the interview uploaded in the social media.
Aliyu in the interview had affirmed that the move by President Goodluck Jonathan to run for a second term was never in their agreement as he (Jonathan) had an agreement with the PDP Governors to run for just one term.
The Governor had asserted that it was the agreement for a single term that made all the PDP Governors to throw their weights around Jonathan.
He said, “What will be, will be in 2015. We must remind people of the promises they have made. When he (Jonathan) was going to declare, Governors of PDP were brought together to ensure that we were all in the same frame of mind. Some of us, given the PDP zoning, were expecting that the northern states would produce the President for these number of years but God has done His own.
“At that discussion, it was agreed that President Jonathan would serve one term and we all signed and when he went to Kampala, he said the same thing. But for now, President Jonathan has not declared his candidacy and we must not be speculating based on who are benefiting from such a thing. I believe that we are all gentlemen enough and when the time comes, we will all sit down and see what the right thing to do is.
“Many people may misunderstand my stance that I pray for the success of the merger of the opposition parties because I want a situation where in this country, parties can really challenge one another. So that we don’t take it for granted that because you have been winning elections, you can do as you wish. There is a purpose for election. There is a purpose for setting up government. You set up government for the competence, effectiveness and efficiency of running an administration. You don’t set it up because of a group of people, to keep on enjoying to the detriment of the people.”
Meanwhile, the presidency had last night denied Aliyu’s claim, affirming that no agreement was signed in that regard. Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, while speaking in Abuja maintained an unmoved grounds over the matter, asserting that such agreement only exists in the realm of Aliyu’s imagination.
Advising Aliyu to go on with his 2015 ambition, Gulak said such ambition should not be a reason for the “frivolous allegations” leveled against the President.
He said, “President Goodluck Jonathan did not win the presidential election in Governor Aliyu’s state, Niger.
“Anybody who has a presidential ambition, it is such a person’s constitutional right to have ambition.
“He should however go about his ambition without coming up with frivolous allegations.
“President Jonathan did not sign such an agreement with anybody to the best of my knowledge.
“The alleged agreement only exists in the figment of the imagination of somebody with presidential ambition.”
Jonathan has been under fire lately by the Northern leaders on the need to relinquish power come 2015 for a Notherner. The Northern leaders have as a result put up several claims on their earlier agreement with Jonathan and the entire PDP.
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