•What President Jonathan told traditional rulers

By Lekan Ilesanmi

There were strong indications at the weekend that Delta North Senatorial District may be walking a dangerous line with the manipulative scheming going on in the area and which may lead to its loss of the governorship ticket on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Indications to this came with revelations of a closed-door meeting between traditional rulers from the district and President Goodluck Jonathan.

One of the traditional rulers who attended the meeting expressed the fear that “should our people continue to bicker over who gets the ticket, the Central and Southern senatorial districts may be emboldened to come out forcefully to make a case for the ticket within the party”.

It was gathered that, at the meeting between the North District traditional rulers and Jonathan in August, the former presented the latter with a list of four short-listed nominees.

According to one of the traditional rulers in attendance at the meeting inside Aso Rock, “President Jonathan accorded us, the traditional rulers, the appropriate respect but made us understand that we needed to work with our state governor.

“Although he never said we should go and cowtow before our state governor, he made us understand that we needed to engage in consensus building and the governor was better placed, working with us, to make that possible”.

It was further discovered that of the list of the short-listed aspirants, no member of the present State Executive Council was interviewed or screened by the traditional rulers.

This, it was learnt, did not make sense to Jonathan.

In fact, more revelations were to follow.

It was discovered that, in the last two weeks, stakeholders from the two other senatorial districts have stepped up consultations and strategies with a view to wresting the unwritten clause of allowing the North produce the next governor of Delta State.

At press time, it was gathered that should the bickering in the Northern District continue, the district may lose the ticket.

Already, the leaders in the North are also not resting on their oars.  Consultations are on to find a “common ground between what the traditional rulers desire, what the governor may counsel and what President Jonathan may settle for”, the traditional ruler stressed.