The Secret Fears Of Jonathan

After years of being neither here nor there, President Goodluck Jonathan this week came out to endorse the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP presidential ticket for the 2023 election.

He did so during a visit to him by PDP vice-presidential candidate, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa.

The endorsement ordinarily should not have been news given the fact that Jonathan rode to national acclaim on the pedestal of the PDP.

From one of the most ignored deputy governors in the first term of the class of 1999, he rose to become the president of the world’s most populous black nation.

However, following his bruising defeat in the 2015 presidential election, Jonathan for the obvious reason of the betrayal by a reasonable section of the party, mostly from the North, kept away from the PDP.

His endorsement of Atiku Abubakar is itself significant given the bitter assault the former vice-president waged against him within the party in 2010, and then outside the party in 2015.

Atiku’s challenge for the 2010 ticket ended in defeat after a national consensus at the behest of President Olusegun Obasanjo, paved way for the first South-South man to emerge president of the country.

Atiku did not take that PDP presidential primary defeat easily. His concession speech that December night in 2010 at the Eagles Square is reckoned as among the worst deliveries ever by the normally well-sounding Atiku.

By 2013 with Atiku’s eyes set on the top seat, he alongside some others including Bukola Saraki, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Rotimi Amaechi among others, navigated towards the newly formed All Progressives Congress, APC, the armoured vehicle that for the first time shot out a sitting president from office in Nigeria.

Atiku’s contribution to Jonathan’s defeat came in different forms.

Unlike President Muhammadu Buhari who was able to squeeze Atiku where it mattered most at Intels, Jonathan was not so punishing. So, the dollars continued to flow from that monopoly and was apparently used to get at Jonathan.

However, what may have been the more conspicuous contribution of Atiku to Buhari in defeating Jonathan was in lending Garba Shehu to the campaign. Mallam Shehu helped to tie the phrases, ‘clueless’ and ‘incompetence’ to the former president.

As the last president to have held office on the platform of the PDP, Jonathan should have been the leader of the party following his defeat. He, however, quickly abandoned that task and it was not surprising that Nyesom Wike stepped in to dictate the pace and pattern. Wike appointed Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, Uche Secondus and lately Iyorcha Ayu as national chairmen of the PDP.

It should be a matter for reflection by PDP bigwigs that the two former living presidents who served on the platform of the party became acrimonious towards the party after leaving office. President Obasanjo went to the extent of tearing up his party card.

Jonathan did not go that far. However, in heart and even by association, Jonathan is speculated to have in the last few years been more inclined to APC than even the PDP that brought him to fame.

Indeed, there were many reasons for this speculation.

A number of close associates nationally and from Bayelsa left to join the APC indicating either his nonchalance or collaboration.

Ima Niboro, his former spokesman now speaks for the APC cum governorship candidate in Delta. Chief Diekivie Ikiogha, former Chief of Staff to Governor Serikae Dickson is another one of the very close associates of Jonathan’s from Bayelsa who also ditched the PDP for the APC.

At the heart of the speculations was the rumoured attempt by the northern establishment to quickly return to power in 2027 after the envisaged turn of the South using the Jonathan pathway.

Within the APC and outside, there were many hands involved in the Jonathan operation. In the PDP among the names mentioned were Governor Bala Mohammed who considers himself Jonathan’s son and the former Special Duties Minister, Tanimu Turaki.

Several elements in the APC including Buhari were mentioned as facilitators of the Jonathan comeback. However, a senior presidential aide who should know Buhari’s involvement dismissed the speculation to this correspondent.

Whatever, the Jonathan romance with the APC topped-off with the visit to the APC national chairman on May 10, 2022.

Whatever, at that point with indications that the former president wanted a guaranteed ticket, the speculations tapered off and Jonathan pulled into his strides as Nigeria’s number one unofficial diplomat and peace envoy to the nations.

The endorsement of the PDP ticket is the most partisan statement that has come from President Jonathan in a long while. But the endorsement was halfhearted given the situation on ground.

In the video published by the online news website GWG.NG https://gwg.ng/2022/10/14/jonathan-betrayal-pdp/ the former president endorsed Okowa as the incoming vice-president of the country. No reference was made to Atiku. Was it in the full video one may ask?

Of course, after their serial fights in 2010 and before 2015 it would not be surprising that Jonathan would be wary.

He even has more reason to wary given the status of some Atiku men lying in the background from the South-South who would rise to prominence once the PDP forms government. Men like James Ibori who diminished Jonathan as a sitting vice-president would walk with swagger in an Atiku government.

For now, just as Mamman Daura and the recent national honours award recipient and presidential aide, Sabiu Yusuf Tunde (OON) were quiet and praying for Buhari to emerge for them to take glory, so the likes of Ibori are waiting in the wings. You can then understand the fear of President Jonathan.

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