Sections of the former military president, Ibrahim Babangida’s campaign organisation collapsed at the weekend as state coordinators of his campaign in the 2007 general election dumped him for President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign team.
The former Babangida state campaign coordinators, led by Ernest Khuemen Okojie, described Mr Jonathan as the “Joshua of this time whom God has ordained to lead the Nigeria to the promise land.” “We were formally working for IBB, but few hours ago we are now wearing Jonathan,” he said. Mr. Okojie, who spoke in Abuja at a meeting with leader of the Niger Delta, Edwin Clark and other leaders of the Ijaw nation, said Mr Jonathan would “free this country from bad rulers to good governance where everyone will feel a sense of inclusiveness, be happy and proud.” “I, E.K. Okojie, the Chairman and National Coordinator of the defunct IBB Presidential Campaign Organisation is here with 35 out of the 37 state coordinators to join hands with all the all the progressives and, the hitherto marginalized people of this country, both north and south to work hard to ensure President Goodluck Jonathan becomes President in 2011,” he said. Mr. Okojie said some of the northerners agitating that Mr Jonathan cannot contest are “unreasonable, greedy and unpatriotic. That Jonathan will be the President of the great country Nigeria come 2010 is God’s decision.”
Momentum behind Jonathan
Mr. Clark said the switch indicates that momentum has now swung behind Jonathan. “Today is one of the happiest days in my life,” he said. “The IBB campaign groups have resolved to work for Jonathan. No section of this country is against Jonathan contesting the election.” Some Northern elders had, during the Northern Political Summit on the Roadmap to 2011 in Kaduna, recently thrown their weight behind a Goodluck Jonathan presidency. They argued that the zoning policy that produced the presidency of Umaru Yar’Adua, and the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan was an inseparable ticket and, therefore, the demise of one did not invalidate the privileges of the remaining beneficiary of that agreement.
