SAN FRANCISCO, September 16, (THEWILL) – The G7 state Governors elected under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday agreed to remove President Goodluck Jonathan’s perceived re-election bid from their demands as the PDP continues to seek ways to avoid an impending implosion ahead of the 2015 general elections, according to Akwa Ibom State Governor and Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Mr. Godswill Akpabio.
Akpabio said the Governors at the reconciliation meeting on Sunday with President Jonathan in attendance agreed to drop their demand seeking to bar the president from standing for election in 2015 as part of a purported agreement between the president and northern politicians in 2011.
Akpabio said since “ambition is a personal thing to an aspirant” the governors agreed not to discuss it or make it part of the conditions for a deal.
“…On the issue of 2015, both sides agreed that it wasn’t an issue for discussion because every single person has a right to nurse ambition. Some of the governors may have ambition, like I have ambition to go to the Senate and you can’t discuss anything about another person’s ambition. You are the only person that can discuss your own ambition. Ambition is personal. So both parties agreed to that,” the governor told state house correspondents on Monday.
Sources at the reconciliatory meetings told THEWILL that the president’s body language often showed that he wasn’t willing to trade off his perceived re-election plot in 2015.
The G7 governors who now belong to the “New PDP”, a splinter of the ruling party, have been meeting with the president, select governors and leaders of the party so as to save the party from imploding.
The G7 governors are Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Abdulafatah Ahmed (Kwara), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa).
Amongst the seven demands of the governors who walked out of the party’s special convention at the Eagle Square in Abuja on August 31, 2013, are: the sacking of party chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur; the return of state party structures to governors, and a commitment that the president will stop witch-hunting and harassing them, their administration and supporters.
Another reconciliatory meeting has been scheduled for October 07, 2013, at the presidential villa in Abuja.
