BY SIMON EBEGBULEM

BENIN CITY — Former governor of the old Bendel State, Dr Samuel Ogbemudia, has said South-South leaders were backing the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan because of their conviction that he will make Nigeria a better place before leaving office in 2019.

According to him, “Jonathan is competent and has tried very hard and I acknowledged the fact that he has a lot in his brain. But what many Nigerians are praying for is for him to have committed advisors, friends, well-wishers, those who will tell him the truth, not those who will tell him that he can turn a man to a woman.

“For me, I believe that he has done well and what he has done is enough to convince Nigerians to give him a fresh mandate.

“My immediate work which I am doing is to see Jonathan back on the saddle and at the state level to see a competent hand at Osadebey Avenue and that is why I am keeping behind closed doors the names of those who have approached me and the names of those we are investigating. We are working on about seven names. And I don’t care whether the person is All Progressives Congress, APC, or Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP.

“I want to repeat it that I am for Benin agenda, for a Benin man to come after governor Adams Oshiomhole. But having looked at things on the ground and assessed first the performance of people in the last decade, I am convinced that what the people want is performance and not where the person hails from.”