A gale of defections from some opposition parties to the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last few weeks may have bolstered the chances of President Goodluck Jonathan in the presidential election slated for February 14, 2015.
Jonathan, a president from the South-South in the country’s oil rich Niger Delta, though has yet to declare ambition for re-election, pundits say, his body language speaks volume of his interest.
The latest defection was that of Nuhu Ribadu, a former anti-corruption boss, from the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) to the President’s PDP.
Ribadu contested against Jonathan in the 2011 presidential on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which has now dissolved into a mega party. Earlier, Buba Mohammed Marwa, a former military administrator of Borno and Lagos States, had dumped APC for PDP, on the platform of which he is contesting the October 11 off-season gubernatorial election in his native state of Adamawa, alongside Ribadu. Ibrahim Shekarau, a one-time opposition governor of Kano State and founding member of APC, joined the ruling party a few months ago and is currently the country’s minister of Education.
A pundit described Ribadu’s defection as a PDP political coup against the APC.
A PDP member in the state, and National Assembly hopeful in 2015, said Ribadu’s intention to join PDP and contest the governorship may have changed the calculation of many politicians in the state.
“I am not really bothered about Ribadu’s coming. It could be that the Presidency is thinking about adopting him because of his international and national acclaim, and believes that he is capable of steering the ship of the state successfully,” he said, adding that the question to ask is “those on ground, are they solid enough to ensure that any other candidate from the opposition will not carry the day? Ribadu is seen as a strong and credible candidate that can win election; that may be the calculation.”
Ribadu had last week explained his reason for leaving the opposition through Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, a spokesman of his. He said: “It is not true that he (Ribadu) was desperate to realise his political ambition. This is because this decision was taken in the overriding interest of serving the people.
“What matters for him is service. That is why even when he was a member of the opposition party, when government asked him to serve the country, he accepted the offer and he did a wonderful job that everybody hailed except those who don’t want change in the system.
“If you are ready to serve the people, sometimes you will have to do something that is not even palatable to yourself.”
Jonathan succeeded the late Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010 and went ahead to win a fresh term of four years in 2011. However, there has been pressure on him to perish his now-veiled ambition to re-contest, which he has resisted. His resistance, last year resulted in the pulling out of some key members of the party, including some governors who alleged impunity.
Despite the gains PDP has made in the string of defections across the country, members of the opposition believe that the inability of its government to find solution to rising high profile corruption and the Islamist insurgency in the north will work against Jonathan’s return bid.
The Jonathan’s government has continued to receive verbal salvos from the opposition which to accuse him of weakness and incapable of taking the country to the Promised Land.
Jonathan, from Bayelsa State, won the 2011 election with about 59 percent of the vote, promising to wipe out corruption and remedy the country’s chronic power shortages. But since he assumed office, his administration has been preoccupied with trying to contain violence in the northeast as attacks by the Islamist rebel group Boko Haram has become bloodier than ever.
The APC in particular scoffs at government’s lack of transparency in the oil industry. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former central bank governor, was suspended by Jonathan in February after he alleged that about $20 billion of oil receipts due to the government coffers was missing.
Even though Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer, it relies on subsidised fuel imports for more than 70 percent of domestic supply because it has inadequate refining capacity. That’s spawned a network of fraudulent payments estimated to have cost the country about $7 billion in one year alone, according to a 2011 parliamentary report.
Although Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer, it suffers from inadequate refining capacity which results in over 70 percent subsidised fuel imports for domestic consumption. A report said that Nigeria was losing a whopping $7billion on a monthly basis to fraudulent payments in this regard.
One of the major negative points against the government is the Boko Haram insurgency. The sect is estimated to have killed more than 2,000 people in the first half of this year, according to Human Rights Watch.
The APC, which aims to replace the PDP and take charge of a $500 billion economy, parades the likes of Muhammadu Buhari, a former military head of state; Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State; Babatunde Fashola, its current governor, and Rotimi Amaechi, governor of the oil-producing Rivers State.
An analyst said that PDP would likely face a tough battle in 2015: “While the security environment will remain tense in the next six months, with more Boko Haram attacks expected, the probable selection of Jonathan as the ruling party’s candidate means investors shouldn’t expect Nigerian economic momentum to be reversed. The risk of radical changes in monetary or fiscal policy is also relatively low.”
Zebulon Agomuo
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