Jonathan’s Foot-Soldiers Threatens to Work for APC If He Picks Sambo as Running Mate

 
As the heat of the 2015 general elections heats up, the foot-soldiers of the President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 presidential election under the aegis of the Northern PDP Stakeholders have threatened to dump PDP and work for the presidential candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) if Jonathan failed to drop Sambo for another candidate they consider a “core northerner”.

They claimed that it would be risky for the PDP to ignore the clamour for Sambo’s replacement.



In a statement they issued in Kaduna yesterday, which was signed by Alhaji Shehu Aboki Maishanu, the group said it was working with powerful northern politicians and the intelligentsia “who are not happy with the leadership style of the vice president”.

The anti-Sambo group alleged that he lacked leadership and political skills to galvanise te north’s support for Jonathan in the 2015 election, should he decide to contest.

The group accused the vice president of sidelining experienced, qualified and dedicated party members in the north when it comes to political appointments, claiming that Sambo was only interested in recommending and influencing the appointments of his friends and surrogates into political offices instead of the larger interest of the north.

“The ongoing moves to bring back some aggrieved governors elected on the platform of the PDP who left the party will not work if President Jonathan insists on contesting the presidency with Sambo in 2015. Sambo is not representing the north very well and northerners are not happy with him; if all the outstanding issues concerning the status of the vice president are not tackled, the removal of Bamanga Tukur as PDP chairman will not change anything in the fortunes of the party in the north,” the statement read.

“The recent defection of some members of the PDP to the opposition APC in Kaduna, the home state of the vice president, is an indication that Sambo cannot mobilise support for the PDP in the north. He is surrounded by political neophytes mainly from Kaduna State, people who cannot win elections even in their polling units. As the highest ranking political office holder in the north, the vice president is yet to prove that he is in charge of the north politically.

“Even though many have not been forthcoming on the issue, we believe that, in the present Nigeria, the president and the vice president should not come from the same zone; while we accept that the vice president was born in the north, President Jonathan needs a core northerner to balance the political equation in the country.

“Stakeholders of the PDP in the north are disenchanted with the leadership style of the vice president and President Jonathan should not be deceived that all is well for him to run with Sambo in 2015,” the statement added.

But the Presidency has dismissed the group’s demand, saying that the president cannot be intimidated, even as it traced the threat to the doorstep of the APC.

In a reaction, the special adviser to the president on political matters, Ahmed Ali Gulak, described the threat as empty, saying such intimidation would not work against President Jonathan in the 2015 election. He said both Jonathan and Sambo are inseparable.

Gulak said the said Maishanu group was unknown in the PDP and in the north to warrant according it any seriousness.

“I don’t think we need to waste time on things that are not serious in all their ramifications; by the way, who is Maishanu? Who knows him in the north and where is he from in the north, if I may ask? We have said it timelessly that Mr President and his deputy are 5 and 6 and they are inseparable.

“The president cannot be intimidated in any form by an unknown group or individual who is being sponsored by the opposition APC he is aiming to work for in 2015. We have seen the emptiness of the APC; Nigerians have seen their antics and have therefore rejected them; we have gone beyond them,” Gulak said.

Abusidiqu