concluded presidential election, he never showed it. Before the
election was held, he had started giving conditions on the type of
people he wanted to dominate the forthcoming Eighth National Assembly
"I would want you to elect members of the Peoples Democratic Party to
the National Assembly so that I can work with people who are not
rancorous" - President Goodluck Jonathan told party supporters at one
of his numerous presidential rallies.
But like the biblical Moses, Jonathan has failed to lead his party,
the Peoples Democratic Party, to his dreamland. His reign has brought
to an abrupt end the 16-year uninterrupted reign of the party, whose
former National Chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, had boasted would remain
in power for at least 60 years. A senior employee of the party told
our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday that the former party chairman
could have probably meant 16 years in his projection.
Though the President didn't start out to fall by the wayside, some
states actually plotted his downfall. Principal among them were the
five out of the six states of the South-West. Traditionally, the
President, being a southerner was expected to have wormed his way into
the hearts of the people of the South-West. This was because when he
was being haunted by the then presidential candidate of the defunct
Congress for Progressives Change, who was his major challenger in
2011, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), Jonathan came to seek the
backing of the zone. All of the states in the zone obliged him except
Osun, where he lost. But in other states like Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti
and Ondo, he won.
However, in 2015, it was a different scenario as only the people of
Ekiti State seemed to still remain friendly with the President. With a
little margin, he got 176,466 votes as against 120,331 votes of
Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress.
Even in Ondo State, where the President's party is in charge, the
people revolted. In unison, the majority of the people abandoned him
for Buhari by giving him 251,368 votes as against 299,889 they
collectively gave the former Head of State.
Taking a leaf from the South-West example, some states in the
North-Central, which were traditional supporters of the President,
also deserted him. Those states include Benue, Kogi and Kwara. A
former Governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki, was among the
members of the PDP, who were hounded out of the party. Saraki threw
his hat into the ring and joined forces with the opposition to give a
killer blow to his former party and its presidential candidate.
Though the President was able to make a showing in other states from
the zone, voters from the North-West were not considerate of Jonathan
in their voting. The only zone with seven states witnessed all of them
chorusing in harmony and actively participated through their votes in
the revolution that sacked Jonathan from Aso Rock. These states are
Sokoto, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa and Kaduna.
It was also not a rousing outing for the outgoing President in the
North-East, where his government has been battling Boko Haram
insurgency. Five out of the six zones voted for change and rejected
continuity which the President campaigners said he represented. Voters
from those states that would prefer President Jonathan to relocate to
his Otuoke, Bayelsa State home, instead of spending another four years
in office, were those of Yobe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Borno and Gombe. The
governors of the zone, who are members of his party and who he
regularly referred to as his field commanders, were outrun by the
voters with their Permanent Voter Cards, which they willingly used as
their weapons. These governors are Isa Yuguda (Bauchi), James Ngilari
(Adamawa) and Ibrahim Damkwambo (Gombe). Nevertheless, the President
made a remarkable showing in Taraba State. But that was not enough to
guarantee his second term ambition. These are the part of
history-making states that made President Jonathan the first Nigerian
president to lose his re-election bid. A return to Otuoke, therefore,
beckons.
The President would however not return alone. He is expected to be
accompanied by members of his immediate family led by his wife,
Patience, whose stay in Aso Rock has added a wide vocabulary to
Nigeria's political lexicon.
--PUNCH
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