By Donu Kogbara

YOU might recall that the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF), the PDP faction that is led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma,  presented Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as the “Northern Consensus Candidate” at the party’s primary in January. You might also be aware that when Atiku failed to secure the PDP nomination, President Jonathan did not behave like an arrogant victor.

Instead of slamming the door in NPLF members’ faces, Jonathan has patiently sat down with them a few times to discuss their concerns. And they have been pressing him for certain assurances aimed at protecting Northern interests.

The PDP’s Board Of Trustees (BOT) has responded to these demands by advising Jonathan against signing any formal agreement with the NPLF.  And I totally agree with the BOT.

Every political group contains different sub-groups–women’s groups, youth groups, ethnic groups and so on; and I see no reason why the President should start signing special watertight quasi-legal treaties with any one group!

Jonathan should just get on with his job and be as fair to every group as it is possible to be, given that life is imperfect, that flexibility is sometimes necessary and that one cannot please all of the people all of the time.

Jonathan is the President of the entire country, not the President of the South-South. He is a longstanding advocate of the One Nigeria principle. He is not a rabid Niger Delta activist, closet secessionist or divisive tribalist.

Jonathan he has no desire to crush or undermine Northerners. He has a lot of genuine Northern friends. He is being ably assisted by a Northern Vice President and staunchly supported by other senior Northerners like Hassan Tukur, his Principal Secretary.

Ciroma and his disgruntled cohorts have nothing to fear from Jonathan. He may not be able to give the North everything it wants and needs. But he can’t give Igbos, Yorubas, Middle Belters or his own South-South brethren everything they want and need either…because the national cake is simply not big enough to solve everyone’s problems and fully accommodate  everyone’s desires.

Only if Jonathan turns out to be unwilling or unable to juggle these numerous  competing interests in an equitable manner will the NPLF have a leg to stand on. And we won’t know whether Jonathan can manage this difficult challenge competently and justly until he has been in the hot seat for a couple of years.
I therefore urge the NPLF to give him the benefit of the doubt, in the short-term at least…and to quit bellyaching like sore losers who belong to a different party, behave like the loyal PDP members they are supposed to be and  graciously blend with the many Northerners who are working with Jonathan.

Mend this rift

I REALLY don’t understand the Niger Delta militants who describe themselves as MEND members. They have flatly refused to participate in the Amnesty programme and have claimed responsibility for various bomb blasts. Now they are threatening to unleash more acts of violence on their fellow Nigerians during this election season. They say that anyone who attends pro-Jonathan rallies will be targeted; and I’m flabbergasted by this homicidal hostility.

One would have thought that people who claim to be pro-Niger Delta would not fight the first-ever Niger Delta President so viciously. They say that Jonathan has been a great disappointment. And I daresay that he could have done better.

But  Nigeria is an unbelievably tough place to govern effectively; and Jonathan hasn’t been Head of State for long.  So why can’t the MEND men lay down their weapons and give him a chance to settle down and show us what he can do?

Appearances can be deceptive

I WATCHED the debate that NN24 hosted a week ago for three presidential candidates and was pleasantly surprised by Shekarau’s performance.

Alhaji Shekarau, the former Governor of Kano State, does not look inspiring and belongs to a party (ANPP) that doesn’t enjoy widespread support. Furthermore, unlike his main opponents – Jonathan, Ribadu and Buhari – he has not had much of a profile or voice outside the realms of his home state.

Before the debate, Shekarau seemed so insignificant, to me at least; and I sniggered disrespectfully when I discovered that he was going to join Buhari and Ribadu at the debate. I simply didn’t regard him as front-runner material and wondered why he had been invited to speak alongside other front-runners.

But guess what? He was, in my opinion, the most impressive orator. His tone was measured and responsible. He handled the sometimes tricky questions that were thrown at him skilfully. He made sparky and wise comments like: “It only takes one jump to fall into a ditch. But it takes several jumps to get out of the ditch”.

Many other people agree with my verdict. When Sahara Reporters, a popular online news website, conducted a poll after the debate, the majority of readers who voted expressed the view that Shekarau was the clear winner.

It is good to be reminded, from time to time, that it is foolish to judge books by their covers. Having said this, a friend who lives in Kano insists that Shekarau’s performance at the debate also proves that appearances can be deceptive.

According to my friend, Shekarau was a far from ideal Governor who doesn’t deserve to win the real election “because he is better at talking than doing”!

Other debate observations

ON reflection, the event that NN24 hosted was not a proper debate. It was merely a question-answer session during which the candidates were allowed to speak uninterrupted most of the time. It would have been much more interesting if they had been encouraged to interact with each other as well as the moderator. Some verbal fisticuffs would have added a bit of spice!

But I must congratulate Mrs Kadiria Ahmed, the moderator, for asking the candidates no-nonsense questions. She quizzed Shekarau about the repressive sharia police in Kano, gave Buhari a hard time about his scanty democratic credentials and put Ribadu on the spot about the fact that he now belongs to the same party as Tinubu, a man he once allegedly described as corrupt.

I think it is fair to say that the highly articulate and admirably unsychophantic Ahmed is a world-class credit to journalism and deserves joint first place alongside Shekarau.