There appears to be palpable anxiety among the political
associates of President Goodluck Jonathan due to the deferment of his
declaration for the 2015 presidential race.
He was initially billed to formally declare this month. The zonal rallies organised by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were arranged as a prelude to the formal presidential declaration in May.
But the latest development is coming amid reports that last-minute efforts by the president to elicit the support of former president Olusegun Obasanjo ahead of the race suffered another set-back as the former leader insisted that President Jonathan should stay out of the presidential contest.
LEADERSHIP Friday reliably gathered that, in a subtly controlled manner, the presidency has also directed all pseudo-campaign organisations to carry on their activities with less fanfare and visibility for obvious reasons.
But the umbrella body of all such campaign outfits, the Goodluck Jonathan Support Group (GJSG) hitherto led by the sacked political adviser, Ahmed Ali Gulak, has denied receiving such a directive.
This is even as the PDP has dismissed the report. The party said it was deliberate on its part to whittle down political activities in the face of the incessant insurgents’ attacks in the northern region.
The development, understandably interpreted in some quarters within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to mean a tactical withdrawal from the 2015 race by President Jonathan, has raised fresh fears as well as new permutations.
According to a chieftain of the ruling party, the president told a delegation of some of his field men that visited him to fix a date for the declaration to “hold on”.
“From all indications, issues keep on coming up every day as we march ahead of 2015; the unfortunate thing is that insurgency has taken the shine off political activities.
“As it is now, no one can tell whether the president will run or not because he has continued to tell field men to hold on even when the earlier May date fixed for his formal declaration has lapsed.”
Asked whether he was convinced that the president would run in 2015, the source said the situation was uncertain. He said: “The situation is still unclear; it’s fluid, I can tell you; because, from all indications, party men are already engrossed with a series of calculations as if the situation has finally dissected itself.”
According to him, even though it has not been formally discussed in official circles, there are fears over the insistence of Obasanjo that President Jonathan should not run in 2015.
LEADERSHIP Friday learnt that, at the meeting which took place in Lagos on Sunday at the instance of President Jonathan while he was returning from Paris, France, after attending a security summit on Africa, the two leaders were said to have discussed the insecurity situation in the country as well as President Jonathan’s alleged second-term ambition.
On the latter issue, Obasanjo, our source said, insisted that Jonathan should rather “build national consensus” by first reconciling all leaders of the ruling PDP just as he stood his ground that the president should make sacrifice to save the party by not running in 2015.
As a result, some party stalwarts are said to be mulling fresh permutations in case the president heeded the advice of Obasanjo not to run.
Fresh on the cards, according to a source, was to draft either of the governors of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, or his Katsina counterpart, Shehu Shema, into the race with a south-western running mate for the presidential contest in 2015.
As the GJSG denied being stopped from heightening campaigns, the PDP admitted that it scaled down political activities to respect the feelings of those who have lost dear ones in the series of attacks.
Acting national coordinator of the GJSP Dr Eddy Eniola Olafeso said it was a mere rumour. “It is untrue that we have been stopped; all I can tell you is that we have identified with the achievements of the president and we are disseminating the gospel to those who need to know.”
For his part, national publicity secretary of the PDP Chief Olisa Metuh, while admitting that the party had decided to maintain low-range activities, said it was untrue that the party was not thinking about 2015.
“We respect human life in our party and we have no regrets that we decided to scale down our political activities in view of the inhumanity that has been visited on our country.
“We need to ask ourselves, why is it that it is when the insurgents heightened their onslaught that the opposition suddenly became boisterous? We will do what Nigerians need to return to power in 2015 and continue to provide leadership for the country,” Metuh said.
Boko Haram: NUT Holds Nationwide Protest Over Mass Killing Of Teachers
Academic activities in most government schools across the country were grounded yesterday when teachers, under the umbrella of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, embarked on an industrial action over the killing of over 150 of their colleagues by the Boko Haram insurgents and the abduction of the schoolgirls in Government Secondary School, Chibok.
Reports from Oyo, Adamawa, Rivers, Imo, Katsina, Kwara, among others, showed that the teachers heeded the call of the NUT national executive for all teachers in public schools to down tools for one day and protest the wanton killing of teachers in the states under the state of emergency.
The teachers also came out to protest the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls who have remained captives to their abductors for over 38 days.
In Oyo State, the protest paralyzed all public schools as pupils of primary and post-primary schools were sent back to their various homes following the protest.
The NUT president, Michael Olukoya, who spoke on the protest, said the union would not view the kidnap from a religious or ethnic angle but an assault on education.
He said the Boko Haram was a terrorist organisation and that its attacks had been religiously indiscriminate. He said the school system — primary, secondary, and tertiary — had suffered the worst attacks from the Boko Haram sect.
Thousands of Imo State teachers stormed the streets of Owerri to protest the protracted abduction of over 200 Chibok schoolgirls in Borno State.
Addressing the teachers at the Government House, Owerri, the state governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, said: “I hate to say but apologize to Nigerians that, indeed, we have failed.”
Teachers in Ondo State also took the Boko Haram protest to the streets of Akure, the capital city, as part of solidarity for the quick rescue of the children.
The protesting teachers in their thousands chanted solidarity songs and armed with placards bearing inscriptions such as “Boko Haram is evil,” “Bring an end to Boko Haram insurgence,” “Western Education is a means to civilization”.
School pupils in public schools in Kwara State were turned back home as their teachers joined in the protest march in Ilorin, the state capital.
School pupils who were caught unawares by their teachers’ protest had to return home when they could not meet any of the teachers in all the schools across the state.
In the Yola procession, the protesters who took to the major streets of Yola, the capital, and were at the Government House, Yola, to express their grievances to the state governor, Murtala Nyako, called on him to use his office to appeal to the federal government to expedite action for the release of the abducted girls.
In his response, Governor Murtala Nyako expressed concern and promised that their plight would be adequately communicated to the federal government.
In Rivers State, the teachers took to the streets of Port Harcourt to participate in the nationwide protest.
The protesting teachers who finally marched to the Government House, Port Harcourt, to register their anger, condemned the abduction of the schoolgirls and other acts of destruction of lives and property, describing the sect’s act as both barbaric and unreligious.
In Katsina, a prayer session and demonstration for the release of abducted girls was organised by the Katsina State chapter of the union. The members, who came out in their hundreds, offered special prayers for the release of the abducted girls, even as they led peaceful protest with placards bearing different inscriptions calling for an end to the insurgency.
Thousands of school teachers yesterday in Uyo trooped out to protest the abduction of Chibok secondary schoolgirls.
The protest which started about 9am saw the teachers moving along the major streets of Uyo, causing a minor traffic hold-up, chanting solidarity songs and calling on President Jonathan to take drastic measures against the Boko Haram menace.
The Bauchi State wing of the NUT demanded compensation for the families of the 173 teachers murdered by insurgents in Borno and Yobe states.
Malam Danjuma Sale, the state’s chairman of the union, made the demand on behalf of his colleagues when he led teachers to the Government House, Bauchi, to protest the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok by insurgents.
“We demand that both federal and the respective state governments should exhibit genuine concern for the families of the affected teachers and pay them adequate compensation,” he said.
In Borno State, teachers protesting the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls and the inability of the government to rescue them said they could no longer tolerate government’s insensitivity to the plight of the education sector, even as they disclosed that over 173 teachers had been killed so far by the Boko Haram insurgents.
All the teachers, putting on black jackets over their normal attires, marched into the Borno State government house at 11am chanting both anti-government and bring-back-our-girls solidarity songs.
Northern Governors To FG: Expose Sponsors Of Boko Haram
The chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) and governor of Niger State, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has said that it was uncharitable to blame northern governors for the insurgence, even as he asked why the government was reluctant to reveal the sponsors of Boko Haram.
Aliyu, who spoke yesterday in Minna at a federal and state security administrators’ meeting, said the statement credited to the minister of information, Labaran Maku, that the northern governors were not doing enough to curb the insurgency was unfair.
“If Maku is speaking for himself, it is very unfortunate and uncalled for, but if he is speaking on behalf of the federal government, it is uncharitable to northern states’ governors,” he stated.
The chairman of NSGF said it was a mark of hypocrisy for people to blame another person for their shortcomings, adding that “no governor in the north can be accused of not doing enough in the fight against terrorism”. “Labaran Maku is probably playing politics because of what is happening in Nassarrawa and Plateau states,” he said. “I am not aware of any governor in the north that has been invited by the national security adviser on what to do and he failed to do it.”
The governor said that “for any minister to wake up and be castigating people, it will not solve the problem; we should stop this blame game; it will not solve the problem. If anything, it will further exacerbate the delicate security situation”.
The problem of insecurity and Boko Haram, he said, could have ben reduced and many arrested if government had exposed the sponsors of Boko Haram. He therefore wondered why the federal government was developing cold feet over exposing the sponsors and their collaborators.
“Why can’t we know their sponsors and collaborators, or is it that security agents are benefiting from the crisis?” he asked. “How can we do enough when people like Labaran Maku would play politics with a serious matter?”
REF http://leadership.ng/news/371996/2015-presidency-anxiety-jonathans-camp-delayed-declaration
He was initially billed to formally declare this month. The zonal rallies organised by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were arranged as a prelude to the formal presidential declaration in May.
But the latest development is coming amid reports that last-minute efforts by the president to elicit the support of former president Olusegun Obasanjo ahead of the race suffered another set-back as the former leader insisted that President Jonathan should stay out of the presidential contest.
LEADERSHIP Friday reliably gathered that, in a subtly controlled manner, the presidency has also directed all pseudo-campaign organisations to carry on their activities with less fanfare and visibility for obvious reasons.
But the umbrella body of all such campaign outfits, the Goodluck Jonathan Support Group (GJSG) hitherto led by the sacked political adviser, Ahmed Ali Gulak, has denied receiving such a directive.
This is even as the PDP has dismissed the report. The party said it was deliberate on its part to whittle down political activities in the face of the incessant insurgents’ attacks in the northern region.
The development, understandably interpreted in some quarters within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to mean a tactical withdrawal from the 2015 race by President Jonathan, has raised fresh fears as well as new permutations.
According to a chieftain of the ruling party, the president told a delegation of some of his field men that visited him to fix a date for the declaration to “hold on”.
“From all indications, issues keep on coming up every day as we march ahead of 2015; the unfortunate thing is that insurgency has taken the shine off political activities.
“As it is now, no one can tell whether the president will run or not because he has continued to tell field men to hold on even when the earlier May date fixed for his formal declaration has lapsed.”
Asked whether he was convinced that the president would run in 2015, the source said the situation was uncertain. He said: “The situation is still unclear; it’s fluid, I can tell you; because, from all indications, party men are already engrossed with a series of calculations as if the situation has finally dissected itself.”
According to him, even though it has not been formally discussed in official circles, there are fears over the insistence of Obasanjo that President Jonathan should not run in 2015.
LEADERSHIP Friday learnt that, at the meeting which took place in Lagos on Sunday at the instance of President Jonathan while he was returning from Paris, France, after attending a security summit on Africa, the two leaders were said to have discussed the insecurity situation in the country as well as President Jonathan’s alleged second-term ambition.
On the latter issue, Obasanjo, our source said, insisted that Jonathan should rather “build national consensus” by first reconciling all leaders of the ruling PDP just as he stood his ground that the president should make sacrifice to save the party by not running in 2015.
As a result, some party stalwarts are said to be mulling fresh permutations in case the president heeded the advice of Obasanjo not to run.
Fresh on the cards, according to a source, was to draft either of the governors of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, or his Katsina counterpart, Shehu Shema, into the race with a south-western running mate for the presidential contest in 2015.
As the GJSG denied being stopped from heightening campaigns, the PDP admitted that it scaled down political activities to respect the feelings of those who have lost dear ones in the series of attacks.
Acting national coordinator of the GJSP Dr Eddy Eniola Olafeso said it was a mere rumour. “It is untrue that we have been stopped; all I can tell you is that we have identified with the achievements of the president and we are disseminating the gospel to those who need to know.”
For his part, national publicity secretary of the PDP Chief Olisa Metuh, while admitting that the party had decided to maintain low-range activities, said it was untrue that the party was not thinking about 2015.
“We respect human life in our party and we have no regrets that we decided to scale down our political activities in view of the inhumanity that has been visited on our country.
“We need to ask ourselves, why is it that it is when the insurgents heightened their onslaught that the opposition suddenly became boisterous? We will do what Nigerians need to return to power in 2015 and continue to provide leadership for the country,” Metuh said.
Boko Haram: NUT Holds Nationwide Protest Over Mass Killing Of Teachers
Academic activities in most government schools across the country were grounded yesterday when teachers, under the umbrella of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, embarked on an industrial action over the killing of over 150 of their colleagues by the Boko Haram insurgents and the abduction of the schoolgirls in Government Secondary School, Chibok.
Reports from Oyo, Adamawa, Rivers, Imo, Katsina, Kwara, among others, showed that the teachers heeded the call of the NUT national executive for all teachers in public schools to down tools for one day and protest the wanton killing of teachers in the states under the state of emergency.
The teachers also came out to protest the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls who have remained captives to their abductors for over 38 days.
In Oyo State, the protest paralyzed all public schools as pupils of primary and post-primary schools were sent back to their various homes following the protest.
The NUT president, Michael Olukoya, who spoke on the protest, said the union would not view the kidnap from a religious or ethnic angle but an assault on education.
He said the Boko Haram was a terrorist organisation and that its attacks had been religiously indiscriminate. He said the school system — primary, secondary, and tertiary — had suffered the worst attacks from the Boko Haram sect.
Thousands of Imo State teachers stormed the streets of Owerri to protest the protracted abduction of over 200 Chibok schoolgirls in Borno State.
Addressing the teachers at the Government House, Owerri, the state governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, said: “I hate to say but apologize to Nigerians that, indeed, we have failed.”
Teachers in Ondo State also took the Boko Haram protest to the streets of Akure, the capital city, as part of solidarity for the quick rescue of the children.
The protesting teachers in their thousands chanted solidarity songs and armed with placards bearing inscriptions such as “Boko Haram is evil,” “Bring an end to Boko Haram insurgence,” “Western Education is a means to civilization”.
School pupils in public schools in Kwara State were turned back home as their teachers joined in the protest march in Ilorin, the state capital.
School pupils who were caught unawares by their teachers’ protest had to return home when they could not meet any of the teachers in all the schools across the state.
In the Yola procession, the protesters who took to the major streets of Yola, the capital, and were at the Government House, Yola, to express their grievances to the state governor, Murtala Nyako, called on him to use his office to appeal to the federal government to expedite action for the release of the abducted girls.
In his response, Governor Murtala Nyako expressed concern and promised that their plight would be adequately communicated to the federal government.
In Rivers State, the teachers took to the streets of Port Harcourt to participate in the nationwide protest.
The protesting teachers who finally marched to the Government House, Port Harcourt, to register their anger, condemned the abduction of the schoolgirls and other acts of destruction of lives and property, describing the sect’s act as both barbaric and unreligious.
In Katsina, a prayer session and demonstration for the release of abducted girls was organised by the Katsina State chapter of the union. The members, who came out in their hundreds, offered special prayers for the release of the abducted girls, even as they led peaceful protest with placards bearing different inscriptions calling for an end to the insurgency.
Thousands of school teachers yesterday in Uyo trooped out to protest the abduction of Chibok secondary schoolgirls.
The protest which started about 9am saw the teachers moving along the major streets of Uyo, causing a minor traffic hold-up, chanting solidarity songs and calling on President Jonathan to take drastic measures against the Boko Haram menace.
The Bauchi State wing of the NUT demanded compensation for the families of the 173 teachers murdered by insurgents in Borno and Yobe states.
Malam Danjuma Sale, the state’s chairman of the union, made the demand on behalf of his colleagues when he led teachers to the Government House, Bauchi, to protest the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok by insurgents.
“We demand that both federal and the respective state governments should exhibit genuine concern for the families of the affected teachers and pay them adequate compensation,” he said.
In Borno State, teachers protesting the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls and the inability of the government to rescue them said they could no longer tolerate government’s insensitivity to the plight of the education sector, even as they disclosed that over 173 teachers had been killed so far by the Boko Haram insurgents.
All the teachers, putting on black jackets over their normal attires, marched into the Borno State government house at 11am chanting both anti-government and bring-back-our-girls solidarity songs.
Northern Governors To FG: Expose Sponsors Of Boko Haram
The chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) and governor of Niger State, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has said that it was uncharitable to blame northern governors for the insurgence, even as he asked why the government was reluctant to reveal the sponsors of Boko Haram.
Aliyu, who spoke yesterday in Minna at a federal and state security administrators’ meeting, said the statement credited to the minister of information, Labaran Maku, that the northern governors were not doing enough to curb the insurgency was unfair.
“If Maku is speaking for himself, it is very unfortunate and uncalled for, but if he is speaking on behalf of the federal government, it is uncharitable to northern states’ governors,” he stated.
The chairman of NSGF said it was a mark of hypocrisy for people to blame another person for their shortcomings, adding that “no governor in the north can be accused of not doing enough in the fight against terrorism”. “Labaran Maku is probably playing politics because of what is happening in Nassarrawa and Plateau states,” he said. “I am not aware of any governor in the north that has been invited by the national security adviser on what to do and he failed to do it.”
The governor said that “for any minister to wake up and be castigating people, it will not solve the problem; we should stop this blame game; it will not solve the problem. If anything, it will further exacerbate the delicate security situation”.
The problem of insecurity and Boko Haram, he said, could have ben reduced and many arrested if government had exposed the sponsors of Boko Haram. He therefore wondered why the federal government was developing cold feet over exposing the sponsors and their collaborators.
“Why can’t we know their sponsors and collaborators, or is it that security agents are benefiting from the crisis?” he asked. “How can we do enough when people like Labaran Maku would play politics with a serious matter?”
REF http://leadership.ng/news/371996/2015-presidency-anxiety-jonathans-camp-delayed-declaration
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