Lamido/Amaechi 2015 Ticket: Real Or Imaginary Slug Line? By Ifeanyi Izeze.

When the Holy Bible say “my people perish” it was emphatic they did not perish because they lack resilience for militancy or ordinary graah -graah. They perish for “lack of knowledge” and in this context knowledge about the mechanics and mischief of politicking at the national stage. Is it not interesting that some supposedly highly -placed people of the south-south and their followers or rather village people, for whatever reasons, could be so gullible to buy wholesale and had continued to widen the gap in the relationship between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Rivers state governor and chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Chibuike Amaechi. Whosoever is involved in ensuring this partition is sustained and even fortified for sure have other reasons.
Whose interest is the continued divide between Jonathan and Amaechi going to serve at the end of the day? Does the president need any governor whether for or against to perform and show the Nigerian people that he is trying no matter how small or slow? If a government is delivering on the social contracts with the citizenry, such performance would speak for itself because it would be glaring and cannot be denied even by worst oppositions and critics. But a situation where the government is yet to convince the ordinary Nigerians that against all odds installed it that “yes we can”, how do you expect the electorates to begin to sing “yes we believe” except because faith as defined in the Holy Bible “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen yet.”
How could any reasonable person think or even believe that Amaechi was installed as the NGF chairman to make sure Jonathan did not succeed as a president? Meanwhile, the other side of the divide thinks that Amaechi was put there to enable his south south brother do whatever he wanted with little resistance. If Jonathan is working, is he not going to do it from his office? If he is not working, it is in his office also as the president. So how is it that Chairman of the NGF is the one making sure the president does not perform? This assumption is evil and vexing because it is an outright expression of a disable mindset to think that a governor (even the league of governors) could make a sitting president fail in his office. Even if the president is not performing because there are people who want to make sure he fails, at least there should be sparks of ability to perform which nobody not even satan can take away from him. Is it not so? But what do we have today?
Interestingly, a recent newspaper report had it that “Obasanjo backs Lamido/Amaechi ticket for 2015.” Is this not absurd and a well-packaged mischief deliberately intended to strengthen the slug line between the duo of Gov. Amaechi and President Jonathan. As reported, Lamido and Amaechi will slug it out with President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice -President Namadi Sambo if Jonathan decides to contest the 2015 poll. Guess who is pushing the ticket? Former President Olusegun Obasanjo of all people! The question is: who planted this story, which at best was speculative, as the lead on prominent Abuja-based national daily? And what did the person intend to achieve?
As was said by an analyst, it is also important to warn that the logic of that story is not its truth or falsehood but hanging Sule Lamido and Amaechi’s perceived presidential ambition on Obasanjo’s sponsorship was intended to make it unacceptable to Obasanjo’s many political enemies. This story no doubt is fundamentally a product of intrigue, manipulation and misinformation geared towards causing strife in the ranks of both northern and Southern political leaders and that’s why it’s worrying. Sule Lamido and Amaechi –two governors who have shown undisputable strong leadership models are obviously the target of the mischief.
Is it not surprising that the ticket as canvassed will be Lamido/Amaechi? Why are the proponents not talking of Amaechi as the presidential candidate and Lamido as his vice since the ticket is to unseat a south-south president who is claiming his zone still has one more term to complete their stay at the presidency? Dragging Amaechi into all these was an outright mischief. Let’s even assume President Jonathan would not contest for whatever reasons and the slot returned to the North, is the choice of the vice presidential candidate from the south south more important than the choice of the presidential candidate from the section that should produce him? As it stands today, almost everybody who has been in politics as governor in the north wants to be the PDP presidential candidate: Sule Lamido, Babangida Aliyu, IsaYuguda and Bukola Saraki, amongst  others want to be the president of Nigeria at the same time by wresting power from Jonathan at the PDP primaries except he decides not to contest. If Governor Lamido is being propped up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, as reported, and Yuguda, Aliyu and Saraki are hinging their aspiration on their contacts within the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and PDP Governors’ Forum, why was it easier for the Obasanjo candidate to see no other person to pick as vice other than the Chairman of the governors’ forum who should naturally be better disposed to his governors colleagues who are hinging their support on the forum? You see the mischief?
If it is true as reported that the PDP governors and the Northern Nigeria Governors Forum, will speak with one voice on who they would support for the presidency, we should rather wait until then and not drag Amaechi into the northern calculation which is pretending to ignore the strongest presidential contender and amongst the well-groomed and most-qualified from the region under the current PDP platform- former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who has never hid his intention to take a shot at the presidential contest come 2015.
We need to be reminded that when Jonathan decided to contest against the will of the North in the 2011 election, almost all the Northern Governors rose against that decision but as events unfolded, we all saw how their nay turned to aye and the ayes had it. Nigerians should shine their eyes, lets no one deceive us again.