By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

President Goodluck Jonathan has been magnanimous to the Northern part of the country by appointing several top federal government functionaries from that part of the country, in spite of the explicit rejection of his candidature by a large population of Northerners at the 2011 general elections.

The Coordinator of the Northern Emancipation Network, NEN, Mal. Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, who made this submission in an interview in Abuja, said that the Northerners could no longer afford to play the enemy card in the 2015 elections, if they did not want to regret, after the elections.

According to him, playing the North against the president’s 2015 re-election ambition could spell doom for that region as the president could easily side-line it after winning a second term in office.

His words: “If we speak about the North as per the present arrangement we find that individually that there is no region that has been favoured as far as federal appointments are concerned than the north.

“For instance, the Vice President, Senate President, Speaker, INEC chairman, NSA, Inspector General of Police, Comptroller of Customs, ministers and other top appointments, even President Jonathan’s own Niger Delta does not have that.”

“Unless we are being selfish- the vice president and others cannot change our situation no person can do that.

“Our agenda (at the NEN) is that we should not allow these people to endanger northern political future for their personal reasons because if we allow the North to play the enemy in 2015 and it loses like 2011, we might be as fortunate as now. The President Jonathan has every reason to sideline us but still plays along.”

Mal. Suleiman predicted that the North would filed at least three presidential candidates in 2015, going by current political alignments and that it would be impossible for any of them to garner enough votes to emerge president.