News: View the Gladiators of GEJ for 2015

Chances are, if you meet President Goodluck Jonathan today and ask him if he will re-contest for the presidency in 2015, he will not waste time in replying that he has not made up his mind on the issue. But if the President decides to give a more generous answer, he will affirm that he will take a decision on the issue by 2014, a year to the general elections, when most Nigerians would have started feeling the positive impact and policies of his administration.

Patience Jonathan 

Leading a flank of the campaign is the wife of the President, Patience. Defying recent notice by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that the time is not ripe to start mounting the rostrums to ask for votes of the electorate, she recently kicked off the 2015 campaign of her husband during her 11-day visit to Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State. Apart from the pain caused residents as most parts of the city were virtually locked down during the visit, the expansive residence of the First Lady was a beehive of activity as she took time to receive different groups and individuals who rabidly pledged their support for the second term ambition of her husband.

Kema Chikwe

Kema Chikwe, former PDP National Women Leader, who was present at the above stated event did not waste time in declaring the support of her constituency for the 2015 ambition of the President. “Tell him that PDP women in every nook and cranny, wherever we are, young or old, beautiful or ugly, tall or short, small or big, we are chatting to Nigerians.

Oronto Douglas

Sources told this magazine that Dame Jonathan worked and relied on advice and strategies fashioned out by some close aides of President Jonathan, especially Oronto Douglas, the Special Adviser to the President on Strategy and Documentation.

Nyesom Wike

Working closely with Mrs. Jonathan, especially in the recent months is Nyesom Wike, Minister of State for Education, who shares the same home state with the First Lady. She publicly acknowledged that the Minister played a vital role in her recent visit to Rivers State. Wike is also interested in becoming the next Governor of Rivers, an ambition which is not enjoying the support of the incumbent. Hence, the Minister is banking on alliance with the Presidency fostered through the First Lady to achieve his ambition.

Bamanga Tukur

Tukur: Bull-in-china-shop approach

Of course, without the support and active connivance of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, PDP National Chairman, the taker-over of PDP Rivers State chapter would have been an impossible task for Wike. The PDP National Chairman for instance, wasted no time in arranging for the swearing in of Obuah and other members of his executive a day after the controversial judgment of Abuja High Court which declared them the validly elected executive of Rivers PDP.

Governor Godswill Akpabio

Akpabio: Expected to finance PDP project in South-West

The Akwa Ibom State Governor himself has never hidden the fact that he is one of the foot soldiers of President Jonathan’s 2015 project. Since his emergence as the Chairman of PDP-GF, Akpabio has been saddled with various tasks designed to strengthen the party towards the 2015 elections. He is leading efforts to settle the seemingly intractable crisis rocking the South-West chapter of the party for instance. A source told this magazine that PDP chieftains in the South-West expect Akpabio, whose state has been occupying the number one spot in terms of revenue allocation from the federation account, to be one the major financiers of efforts to pry states in the region away from the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, starting with the Ekiti and Osun State gubernatorial elections, slated for next year.

Chief Edwin Clark

Chief Edwin Clark, octogenarian leader of the Ijaw nation, played little role, if any at all, in the journey of President Jonathan from Yenagoa to Abuja. But starting from the 2011 general elections, the former Minister of Information has taken over the task of selling or, more appropriately, forcing his kinsman down the throat of Nigerians.

Chief Tony Anenih

•Anenih: wants automatic ticket for Jonathan

Another octogenarian, Chief Tony Anenih, popularly known as Mr. Fix-It for his skilfulness at achieving political results by fair or foul means, put it more pointedly when he asked the ruling party to work out a way of giving automatic ticket to President Jonathan at a dinner held two months ago. Anenih was foisted as the Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees, BOT, by President Jonathan as part of his maneuvres to take full control of the ruling party in February. Sources said the President considers the 80-year-old a weighty enough counterpoise to the influence and remaining vestiges  of former President Obasanjo within PDP.

Kingsley Kuku

Kingsley Kuku, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Amnesty Implementation Committee, literally stirred a storm when, at a parley in Washington with US State Department, led by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (Bureau of African Affairs), Donald Teitelbaumin, he predicted a resurgence of violence in the Niger Delta region if President Goodluck Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015. Kuku noted that the relative peace being enjoyed in the oil-producing region was because of Jonathan. The assertions in the US generated controversy and attracted a rash of condemnations back home with many, especially Northerners, calling on the President to rein in his aide.

Dokubo Asari

The widespread condemnation of Kuku’s United States’ speech only succeeded in rousing Dokubo Asari, the leader of Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force into action on the Jonathan 2015 project. “We have to demand what belongs to us; 2015 is not about Jonathan but about our destiny, if you allow them they will crush you when they come. I am ready for them bullet for bullet,” Dokubo, who threatened that Niger Delta militants will totally cripple oil production in the Niger Delta if Jonathan is not re-elected in 2015, said.