BY  CHRIS OCHAYI

ABUJA—President  Goodluck Jonathan has been asked to immediately declare his intention to contest re-election for the 2015 presidential election.

A pressure group, Men and Women of Action Campaign Organisation, MWACO, which made the call yesterday in Abuja, argued that Jonathan’s delay in announcing his candidature in the 2015 elections was providing mischief makers opportunities to create distractions in the polity.

National Coordinator of the group, Chief Solomon Akaya, at the interactive session with newsmen, also accused some opposition elements of capitalising on the situation to create all sorts of distractions in a deliberate attempt to stampede Mr. President into chickening out of the race.

Akaya, who was assisted by his Director of Strategy, Osarenren Asemota, said:   “We want to remind Mr. President that he is not a creation of himself. Rather, he is a Pan Nigerian project-a deliberate creation of ordinary Nigerians who were tired of “fixed and reluctant President.

“We refuse to believe that a true democrat will seek to terrorise a duly elected President from freely exercising his constitutionally guaranteed right to a second term, because somewhere in shadowy venues, some pact may have been done perhaps under duress for a particular person to do only one term because he is perceived to be not from the anointed section of the country.

“This is akin to match fixing at the least, and at its worst, a direct attempt to subvert the Constitution which is the foundational guide for a stable Nigeria.”
Akaya stressed further that if opposition to Jonathan’s re-election bid was interpreted in the light of the latter position, it could be viewed treasonable.

“The PDP’s zoning arrangement for high offices within the party is in line with the nation’s Constitution and should not be confused with attempts to stampede an elected President from running for a legal second term in office.
“The recent attempt to cause a rift in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, culminating in the purported defection of some members of the lower house of parliament and the call for the impeachment of Mr. President is clearly part of the grand agenda to cause chaos in Nigeria by seeking to make it ungovernable.

“With hind sight we now know that this plot has been on, since the 2011 general elections, when some opposition parties teamed up to upstage the zoning arrangement of offices painstakingly worked out by the PDP for internal harmony and for all sections of the country to have a sense of belonging.”