2015 presidential elections is going to be an epic battle as President Goodluck Jonathan and his Ijaw brothers are set to teach the entire northern establishment especially the Hausa Fulani a bitter lesson.
I have heard my northern friends and associates opine that come 2015, the opposition All Progressive Alliance (APC), will drive Jonathan out of Aso Rock. My constant visits to states like Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Gusau , Katsina and others indicates that residents are optimistic that Buhari and the APC will defeat Jonathan come 2015.
The fact as I state it now will play out in 2015- APC will surely get more number of votes cast, and meet the constitutional requirement of 25% in 2/3 states of the federation to win the presidency, but Ijawman Jonathan will manipulate the elections and declare himself the President of Nigeria with the help of Hausa Fulani man Attahiru Jega.-and there is nothing the North can do about it.
Jonathan and his Ijaw brothers are prepared for the North and I have enough insider information about it. It serves the North right. In Jos PDP National Convention of 1998, it was a last minute northern gang-up that denied Igboman Alex Ekwueme the presidential ticket of the ruling party. Ekwueme had in the peak of Abacha dictatorship, galvanized many progressives to form G-17 which later metamorphosed into G-34, an elitist engine room of opposition that attacked Abacha’s plot to transmute to a civilian president.
The North rejected Ekwueme because he advocated the concept of Six Geopolitical Zones which was adopted by Abacha’s constitutional conference. Therefore, the north never forgave Ekwueme for that geopolitical experiment. During that Jos convention, progressives and associates of Ekwueme like Abubakar Rimi, Jerry Gana, Adamu Ciroma etc ganged up against this gentleman Igbo progressive and asked the Northern delegates to reject the bloody Biafran.
In 2013, during the build up to the PDP primaries, Ekwueme again was the clear favorite to defeat Obasanjo, until Babangida and Atiku made a volte face that switched the entire convention in favor of Obasanjo. They claimed among others, that Igbos cannot be trusted.
In 2013, days before the PDP primaries, some key figures in Northern Nigeria put pressure on Obasanjo to withdraw support for Peter Odili, alleging that the later, though from South South state of Rivers, has Igbo blood in him. Days to the PDP primaries, ex-president Obasanjo commanded Odili to either shelve his presidential ambition or face EFCC prosecution.
Obasanjo succumbed to pressure and dumped Odili for late president Yaradua as his anointed candidate. Odili was tipped to become vice presidential candidate to Yardaua, but another northern pressure, manipulated by James Ibori , convinced the Ota farmer to chose Jonathan, then governor of Bayelsa as a timid replacement for Odili. The rest is now history.
The fear of Igbo domination led the north to scheme in a Yaradua –Jonathan presidency and now the north is at the receiving end of their cold calculations.
Asari Dokubo and all the militant thugs in the Niger Delta and Ijaw land have threatened the entire northern establishment that if Ijawman Jonathan fails to win the 2015 presidential elections, there will be no Nigeria. According to Asari Dokubo, a presidency patronized thug, “Goodluck will convene a Sovereign National Conference whether he likes it or not,” said Asari with rising anger, “because which president if not for Goodluck will accept somebody to tell him that become a Muslim or resign. What insult? Is that what prophet Sallalahualihiwassalam did: become a Muslim or this…? If na me, tankers will roll out. Now na Maiduguri it is going, now na Yobe e dey go. I will shoot and shoot till they say what kind of a man is this?”
The Ijaws have reviled and insulted all the sensibilities of the northern oligarchy and labeled all their prominent leaders as terrorists, demonizing their past contributions to national development.
Ijaws and few chosen from the Niger Delta have seized the entire nation’s critical area. They have reduced the Hausa Fulanis to mere errand boys in the petroleum industry. All the Alhajis who move about pompously with NNPC allocation papers which they sell to their salivating Igbo Biafrans at huge commission, have all gone back to their villages in Jibiya, Damaturu, Yauri and Maidugeri. The Ijaws are sharing the oil allocation among themselves and few crumbs to other parts of the Niger Delta.
They are controlling key sectors of the economy and the military. They have reduced the post of PDP chairmanship held by the north to presidential errand boy. They deliberately allowed the Boko Haram uprising to become a monster which nobody can control again. Under Ijawman Jonathan, terrorism has ravaged the north that it will take another five years for the North East to recover from the crisis. In summary, Ijawman Jonathan have taught bitter lesson to Hausa Fulani north.
Ijawman Jonathan has overcome his initial fears. He is now personally ready for the North. The way he sacked Hausa Fulani man Sanusi as apex bank chief, without recourse to constitutional provisions, is an indication that any northern government official that fails to shut up his fundamentalist mouth, will be sacked, even without due process.
The worst blow Jonathan will deal to the north is the ongoing multi billion dollar purchase of their elites, traditional rulers and religious leaders. These entire missing billions of dollars are funds being stored to purchase northern elites and already the magic is working. The chairmen of Northern Elders Council, Tanko Yakassai and his group have thrown weight behind Jonathan, well in advance. Former Governors, Attahiru Bafarawa and Abubakar Shekarau of Sokoto and Kano States respectively, have even gone the extent of deriding and insulting APC strongman and ex- Head of State Muhammadu Buhari, to dump APC for PDP. Sharia inventing governor of Zamfara State is now a die hard Jonathan supporter-this is what the missing billions can do in the lives of the Hausa-Fulani-Berom-Tiv northern elites. Many northern politicians I know personally are ready to dump northern candidates for Jonathan, provided hefty national cake would be sliced to them.
Hausaman Attahiru Jega will finally conclude the assignment by declaring Jonathan the elected president in 2015. The major worry I have is that by the time Hausa-Fulani man Jega declares Jonathan the president, after good slice of national cake, the irate voters in Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Borno and Adamawa states who knows that Jonathan cannot get up to 25 % votes in these places, will out of protest slaughter innocent Igbos and Yorubas forced by one Nigeria to seek means of livelihood in the north.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Afenifere should prepare in advance with security agencies and other self help efforts to ensure that innocent Igbos and Yorubas are not slaughtered again in the North after their elites must have sold out the presidency to Ijawman Jonathan.
The Hausa Fuani north have no option than to patiently endure the bitter lessons and reviling insults from Ijaw man Jonathan and his people the manner the entire nation endured years of misrule from them.
Obinna Akukwe
