Support grows for Goodluck Jonathan to stand in polls

Goodluck Jonathan at his swearing-in ceremony as vice-president in 2007

State governors from Nigeria’s oil-producing south on Monday called on President Goodluck Jonathan to declare his candidacy in upcoming elections and urged other parts of the country to also back the incumbent. Nigeria’s Senate last week approved a constitutional amendment which would bring elections forward to January, piling pressure on Jonathan to clarify whether he will run and on the ruling party to decide whether to back him.

A presidential bid by Jonathan in 2011 could be controversial because he is from the Christian south, and an unwritten agreement in the ruling party dictates the president serving the next term should be from the Muslim north.

The country’s state governors, influential figures who control budgets larger than those of some neighbouring nations, form a powerful caucus within the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and their support for Jonathan will be key.

“President Jonathan should openly declare his intention to contest in 2011 because we will fully support his ambition,” governors from the “South-South”, a grouping of six states, said in a communique after meeting in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

“We plead with other zones to accept him,” they said.

The South-South includes Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa as well as Rivers and Delta, the main oil-producing parts of the restive Niger Delta, and official support from the region for his candidacy is unsurprising.

Pressure is mounting on Pres. Jonathan to clear the air on his purported presidential bid. Photo: Punch

Five of the six states are PDP-governed. Only Edo state governor Adams Oshiomhole, a member of the Action Congress opposition party, was absent from the Port Harcourt meeting.

More important for Jonathan’s political fortunes will be the decision of the country’s northern governors, who are due to meet in the city of Kaduna on Tuesday, as to whether they are prepared to back him as the PDP nominee in the polls.

The This Day newspaper reported that 10 of 16 northern governors from the ruling party were prepared to back him in the polls, which, if confirmed, could mean he will comfortably win the PDP ticket in the presidential race.

It said one northern PDP governor was canvassing against a Jonathan bid, while the views of the remainder were unclear.

The PDP nominee has won every presidential race since the end of military rule in 1999.

The unwritten “zoning agreement” within the party is meant to avoid political resentment between the country’s main regions by rotating the office of the president between north and south every two four-year terms.

Jonathan took over as head of state earlier this year after the death of northern president Umaru Yar’Adua, who was part way through his first term. Had Yar’Adua been in good health, he would have been expected to win a second term, and some northerners say only another northerner can replace him.

Should Jonathan be persuaded not to stand in 2011, his supporters in the Niger Delta could launch protests.

But should the northern governors decide to back him, this could also stoke resentment among northern youths, who are already planning a mass protest in Kaduna on Tuesday to lobby against his candidacy, according to the This Day report.

via Reuters