Chilling details of how and why
former President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, lost
the 2015 presidential election, have continued to make the headlines, courtesy
of a book “Against the Run of play.
The latest being admittance for the
first time by Jonathan that there was indeed a gentleman’s agreement that he
was going to do just one term and leave, but had to change his mind because “…
You can make a political promise and change your mind, so long as it is within
the law.”
The book was formally presented to
the public, in Lagos yesterday.
Although Jonathan had in the same
book before giving himself away maintained that the statement he made in Addis
Ababa concerning the fact that he agreed to the one term agreement was quoted
out of context, he admitted some persons made the pledge on his behalf, thus
making nonsense of his initial claims that he had no idea such a thing ever
existed.
“I had made a proposition for a
single term of seven years. That was the context in which I spoke in Addis
Ababa that if the idea was accepted, I would not run again. It was not in the
context of a second term of four years.
“Of course, at that period, the
issue of one term was brought several times at different meetings and some
people took it upon themselves to pledge on my behalf but I never said I was
going to spend only one term… the question was always usually randomly asked
and I never made any such commitment to anybody. “
But former Niger State Governor,
Babangida Aliyu, on his part said” As chairman of the Northern Governors Forum,
I recall having to remind him of the commitment he made to us in 2010 before we
supported his bid to contest. … In one of my meetings with him, I suggested he
could even choose any credible PDP man he wanted from the north and such person
did not have to be among the governors. One day, he would agree to the idea,
another day, he would say something else, “ Aliyu, in the same book, was also
quoted to have said.
When the book was launched on
Friday March 28, 2017 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs
(NIIA), the chairman of the occasion, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, however
cautioned that it would be wrong to reduce the book to a narrative about the
fall of President Goodluck Jonathan and the rise of President Buhari.
According to General Abubakar,
Against The Run of Play “further deepened our understanding of what actually
happened in Nigeria during the March 2015 general election which many believed,
and quite right too, as one of the defining moments in our political history.”
Continuing, he said: “The book is
not [about] the fall of one president and the rise of another, it is a typical
journalistic history in a hurry about what happened, what could have happened
and what is currently happening in our country, so that we can all learn
important lessons.”
While giving kudos to the author,
he challenged journalists to write more books about the different aspects of
our national life, and not only on politics. “We need books to explain some of
the issues that are treated perfunctorily and generate more heat than light, so
we can understand ourselves better,” he charged. He specifically identified the subject matter
of the Chibok girls and the Boko Haram insurgency as fertile grounds for such
books.
The book was summed up by the
reviewer, Dr. Okey Okechukwu, as “ the most useful contribution to our own
understanding of the crises and convolution of the Nigerian state in the last
16 years.” Okechukwu called it one of the most contemporary works on political
economy and power, especially, as it exists in the country.
The occasion was graced by
dignitaries including former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka
Anyaoku, former Minister of Communication and (later) Transportation, Chief
Cornelius Adebayo, Senator Tunde Ogbeha and Mrs. Onari Duke, wife of former
Cross River State governor, who all were on the high table.
The launch also attracted people
from all walks of life, especially corporate figures, politicians and media
bigwigs. Adeniyi’s two successors to the office of the President’s media
advisers, Dr. Reuben Abati and Mr Femi Adesina both attended the launch.
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