Former President Goodluck Jonathan, last night, described a former governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, as a despicable fellow, who resorted to lies and half-truths to try to remain politically relevant. Jonathan also called Aliyu a backstabber, in a statement by one of the ex-president’s former aides, Reno Omokri, maintaining regarding Aliyu, “As long as that remains his character trait, he will always be at the back.”
The former president was reacting to claims by Aliyu that the reason Jonathan lost the 2015 election was because all the northern governors resolved not to support him.
But a former governor of Plateau State, Senator Jonah Jang, similarly dismissed as untrue the statement credited to Aliyu that the then 19 northern states’ governors had met, deliberated, and decided not to support the re-election of Jonathan in 2015.
OBSERVERS TIMES recall Babagida Aliyu explanation that Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP governors and board met and made an agreement after the demise of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua that he was running on just one term as the president and he would hand over the baton. But things did not go as planned as Jonathan went for the second run and was defeated.
In his words: “Following the sudden passage of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on May 5th, 2010, the leadership of the then governing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) along with the state governors under the flagship of the party had series of meetings on the presidency and the future of our great party.
“All the governors in the North under the PDP supported the then Vice President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to complete the remaining years of Yar’Adua’s tenure and to contest the next presidential election as a sole candidate of our great party.
“However, midway, President Goodluck Jonathan insisted to run for the office in 2015 against the grain of our earlier agreement. On that premise, we opposed Jonathan. But all along, Goodluck Jonathan had enjoyed every support from the governors in the north and the entire region.
“As chairman of the 19 Northern States Governors Forum, the task was on my shoulders to voice out the position of the North which stood disadvantaged by the demise of Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua and the insistence that Jonathan should run for the office of president in 2015.
“We acted in good spirit and argued our points based on principle and on the subsisting agreement we had with Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. That agreement was written and accepted by all. It is, therefore, wrong for anyone to erroneously say that I, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu had opposed Goodluck Jonathan,”