PDP: Jonathan Lost Election Due to Breach of North/South Power Pact

For the first time since the March 28 presidential
election, the leadership of Peoples Democratic
Party has come out with an explanation as to why
its candidate, former President Goodluck Jonathan,
lost to President Muhammadu Buhari. The PDP
national vice chairman for South-south, Dr. Cairo
Ojougboh, told journalists on Friday in Abuja that
Jonathan lost because he breached a power
rotation agreement between the North and South.
Jonathan’s defeat by the All Progressives Party’s
presidential candidate marked the first time in
Nigeria that either an incumbent president or a
ruling party would lose a national election.
Ojougboh, who is from the same geopolitical zone
as Jonathan, said the outcome of the presidential
election was a clear verdict of the former
president’s rejection by the North and other
justice-minded Nigerians.
He said the poll was also a gesture of the region’s
solidarity with one of their own who they saw as
symbolising an attempt to redress an injustice.
The PDP vice chairman said there was a
gentleman’s agreement in 1998 by the 34 “great”
men that formed PDP that the office of president
would be held for eight years each by the North
and South, beginning with the South. He stated
that the arrangement was later enshrined in the
PDP constitution, stressing that Jonathan went
contrary to an agreement he entered into before
the 2011 presidential poll to do only one term of
four years and then return power to the North.
Some PDP leaders had previously made allusions
to the alleged breach of a North-South power
rotation agreement by Jonathan. But Ojougboh is
the first high ranking officer of the now opposition
party to make the point so pointedly.
According to the PDP vice chairman, when “PDP
had the first shot, everybody cooperated. Obasanjo
became president. After eight years, it was the turn
of the North to become president, then problem
started.
Some people started toying with the idea of third
term. PDP said no, PDP members of the National
Assembly and other parties said no, it will not
work. Wonderful!
“The PDP had to produce a candidate and that was
how Yar’Adua came. Unfortunately, Yar'Adua did
not survive, so the North, said look, this
presidency is our own, we have to utilise our
allotted eight years, and they were right.
“Jonathan himself said he will do only four years.
Emirs, leaders and stakeholders in the country
accepted that Jonathan will do only four years so
that power can shift to the North. When the time
came, a lot of macabre dance started; people
started putting pressure here and there, and people
started encouraging Jonathan to contest.
“Unfortunately, Jonathan didn't have the nerve to
say, no, I will keep my agreement.
“So, Jonathan contesting meant that zoning
formula had been breached. The North didn't take
kindly to it; they said, no, this is not what we
agreed. Even the Christian North that used to be
very friendly, especially the North-central, said, we
had an agreement.
“Some governors, about five of them, left the party
because of that because they saw what was
happening. The North now agreed that they must
take power back, that it was their turn.”
Interestingly, Ojougboh noted, there were two
major presidential candidates in the last election,
Jonathan from the South and Buhari from the
North.
“The South had done more than enough for the
time being, for the agreement of 1998/1999. So
the North said, look we are going to vote for our
son, whether he is good or bad,” the PDP leader
said.
Ojougboh said PDP had learnt from its mistakes,
emphasising that the party will never again treat
its zoning principle with levity. He ruled out the
issue of resignation or dissolution of the National
Working Committee of PDP and explained that the
members would remain in office till March next
year.
But he noted that the APC-led federal government
will not stand the test of time, maintaining,
however, that PDP would not interfere in the affairs
of the ruling party.
It would be recalled that the immediate past
governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, had on
February 17, 2013, at a time of intense power play
ahead of the last presidential election, insisted that
Jonathan entered into an agreement with PDP
governor to serve for a single term.
Aliyu, who made the disclosure during an interview
with the Kaduna-based radio station, Liberty FM,
alleged that it was on the basis of the one-term
pact that the PDP governors supported Jonathan at
the 2011 presidential election.
The former president and Jonathan’s erstwhile
godfather, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had also
maintained that Jonathan had an agreement with
PDP stakeholders to do one term. Obasanjo’s
insistence on the sanctity of that agreement was
the source of a rift between the two men in the
period before the last general election.