*Why the North will continue to harangue the President
*Jonathan’s planned response

Last week’s defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan’s choice of zone from where the Speaker for the House of Representatives should emerge is just one in a long list of confrontations from the North that he had had to contend with (see the list at the end of the story) But there is a planned response from the President. This is an exclusive report of the untold history of confrontations between the North as we knew it and Jonathan.

By Jide Ajani, Deputy Editor

Treachery in high  places! Just before ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua was smuggled into the country, the then Chief of the Army Staff, Lt- Gen. A D Danbazau, CFR, was informed of the impending night return. This diligent, professional army officer of repute, Sunday Vanguard can now disclose, made some consultations.

According to findings, Danbazau consulted with a former military leader and a top intelligence chief. He needed support and counsel. He got what he expected. But unknown to Danbazau, some people in the Yar’Adua administration, specifically members of what Nigerians came to know as the cabal and which included but was not limited to then First Lady Turai Yar’Adua, Said Abba Ruma, Tanimu Yakubu and Adamu Aliero (who has moved from ANPP, to PDP and now CPC), did not see the bigger picture.

The agenda that was on the table at that time was one which would have forced Goodluck Jonathan to the back seat – permanently. It was the establishment North that was moving. But because Yar’Adua’s ministers and his wife did not understand the intricacies and complexities of statecraft, nor did they understand the ethno-religious preservative agenda that was being pursued, they doggedly, though subconsciously, helped Jonathan’s continued stay in power.

Therefore, rather than allow the agenda materialise, they fought it to a standstill. And, like the biblical multiplicity of tongues at the tower of Babel, an agenda, which would have seen off Jonathan, ended up preserving him. Even the face-off and the drama over the chair of the president and commander-in-chief on the morning of Wednesday, February 24, 2010, was all part of the short-sightedness of the pro-Yar’Adua group. All these before Jonathan took over last year.

In a chat with Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, one of Nigeria’s most respected foreign affairs minister, last year, on the overheating of the polity over the issue of zoning, Sunday Vanguard was made to understand Jonathan was eminently placed to get the ticket of his Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP; that he could also at the end of the day clinch the presidency.

Akinyemi even went as far as positing that the presidential election represented one which was unique in more ways than one. One of the unique features of the presidential election, the former minister pointed out, was the fact that many Nigerians were not even sure of which political party would win.

But what Akinyemi was quick to add – and which appears to be the emerging reality today – was that it would be up to Jonathan to manage what was described as “the post-election political games that would be played”.
Jonathan is now at that stage.

Last week’s affront on the zoning arrangement of  PDP was another in the series of confrontations between the North and the President.

There are those who insist that Jonathan forced the last confrontation on himself.

Reason: “There was no sense in rewarding the South- West geo-political zone with the job of Speaker of the House of Representatives for failing to deliver the zone to the party”, one of the members of the Northern Political Leaders’ Forum, NPLF, told Sunday Vanguard. “There was absolutely no sense in it and it was an opportunity for us to demonstrate that we had the numbers”.

But the President was said to be merely keeping his words.

Shortly before the general elections, Jonathan had reportedly promised at a PDP leaders’ gathering that he would ensure that the zoning arrangement was retained for the office of Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives. “President Jonathan made that commitment just before the elections and he, being a man of his words, simply kept his promise”, a Presidency source said.

Should he have changed his mind upon discovering that the South-West zone, to which the speakership was zoned, produced only five members of the House of Representatives? Maybe he should have!

The collateral damage of not changing his mind had the capacity to be more damaging than whatever may have been the fallout of sticking to it.

This is just the beginning.

Sunday Vanguard was informed over the weekend that there are many more rivers to cross.

With the groundswell of opinion for a possible amendment of the revenue sharing formula in the country, a formula which gives more to a less populous Federal Government and less to the mammoth state governments and local governments, the next phase of the confrontation in the polity would be over the proposed review.

Although the North is yet to make its position on the matter clear, Sunday Vanguard was made to believe that “whatever would make President Jonathan stabilise and concentrate would be attacked.”

This much was disclosed at another meeting on May 20, 2011, by some northern leaders where lamentation was the order of the day.

But while the leaders were lamenting, they also plotted a strategy of resistance. One of the strategies discussed could as well be described as blackmail.

Participants at the meeting agreed that “any information that would be useful in distracting him (President Jonathan) should be employed to do so”.

Having discussed a very sensitive matter which Sunday Vanguard is not permitted to publish, this was how it was greeted by one of the leaders: “While noting that this revelation was a vital one, it was stated that, this is the type of information they are looking for, that can give them a lead on how they can make progress, remarking that this reminded him of the on-going debate on the issue of leadership in both chambers of the National Assembly, particularly that of the Senate President and Speaker, Federal House of Representatives.

He recalled that just a fortnight ago, it was stated that there was no zoning, but that a week later; the same people maintained that there was zoning. He added that by the time media practitioners began to blame the Presidency and the leadership of the PDP for double-speaking on the issue, the Presidency and the PDP leadership could not defend it. He called on the participants to document all comments made by Mr. President for the sake of posterity, so as to use same against him (Mr. President) later in order to also confront him that this and this, are what he (Mr. President) had stated at one point in time or the other”.

The meeting in question lasted two hours 15 minutes.

How will Jonathan respond?
Sunday Vanguard was told that the President has made it clear that he would not be distracted.
The first sign of this was Jonathan’s quick but magnanimous response to the victory of Aminu Tambuwal as Speaker.

In spite of the obvious assault on the presidential position on zoning by the Tambuwal group, the President congratulated him and equally re-assured all of his readiness to work with the Speaker. It was that statement that made the leadership of the PDP to re-assess the basis of its engagement of Tambuwal and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha, saying both men are forgiven.

A Presidency source told Sunday Vanguard: “The President would not be distracted and that Nigeria as a whole is his constituency. He would be fair to all because that is what the Constitution says and he will uphold it”.

 The confrontation so far Between Jonathan & The North

*November 2009: In the aftermath of President Yar’Adua’s flight abroad, Goodluck Jonathan as Vice-President was kept in the dark about the goings-on. The cabal, a handful of pro-Yar’Adua elements in government, treated Jonathan with less courtesy.

*December 2009: The vacuum created by Yar’Adua’s exit and the seeming helplessness of the Executive Council of the Federation, EXCOF, and the National Assembly to find a way out further weakened a seemingly helpless Jonathan

*January/February 2010: Some past leaders in the country rallied behind Jonathan thereby paving the way for the National Assembly’s Doctrine of Necessity which conferred the status of Acting President on him.

*On the night of February 23, 2010, ailing Yar’Adua was flown into the country creating an air of uncertainty in the polity.

*In the morning of February 24, 2010, Jonathan was prevented from chairing the EXCOF meeting as confusion became the order of the day in Aso Rock Villa.

*On the night of May 5, 2010, Yar’Adua died and was buried the next day – Jonathan was sworn-in as President and Commander-in-Chief. A new chapter began.

*Between May and September, subterranean moves were made by northern leaders to subvert the 1999 Constitution by suggesting that Jonathan was ineligible to contest.

*Jonathan broke from his party’s earlier position and proposed to contest.

*The Northern Political Leaders’ Forum, NPLF, was formed to counter Jonathan

*Bombs were introduced as means of political confrontation by some Nigerians

*Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar emerged as the consensus candidate of NPLF, beating former President Ibrahim Babangida, General Aliyu Muhammed Gusau and then  Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State.

*Northern governors shunned Jonathan but Jonathan pleaded and got their support before the PDP presidential contest.

*Jonathan defeated NPLF at the PDP presidential primary

*Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, rallied behind Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and its presidential candidate, General Muhammdu Buhari

*NPLF and CPC regrouped and mobilised for Buhari on the eve of the presidential election

*Jonathan emerged winner and youths were mobilised for mass action leading to death of hundreds in the post-election violence.

*Jonathan’s choice of Speaker was defeated by North-backed Tambuwal.