Northern Elites Ignores Obi, Moves To Draft Jonathan Into 2027 Presidential Race

Political leaders from the North, a region which holds a huge chunk of Nigeria’s voting population, are working behind the scenes to convince former President Goodluck Jonathan to join the 2027 presidential race.

Sources with knowledge of the plan said that recent comments by the Governor of Bauchi state, Bala Mohammed, to the effect that he would not contest the election if Jonathan eventually caves in, means that the governor’s statement says it all.  

The scheming to persuade the former President to join the race is already in top gear, even though Jonathan is not forthcoming at the moment.

However, when contacted, the former President’s confidants were hesitant to speak on the matter, but were unanimous that talk about 2027 was premature at this point; "this talk about running or not running is way too early in the scheme of things. The former President is focusing on his international assignments and humanitarian works rather than concern himself with potential run for President in 2027".

But the source stated that the decision to sway Jonathan to agree to throw his hat into the ring went beyond party lines and affiliations, explaining that if Jonathan decides to participate, the Nigerians will see how party affiliation will not be an issue. Mohammed, a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory under Jonathan, who spoke after an event organised by a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO), Save Africa Initiative (SAI), had urged Jonathan to consider running for the presidency. 

Gov. Bala Mohammed said the former president has more experience and would do a good job if he had a second mandate to manage the country.

He said:

“With regards to your call for me to present myself, I am still contemplating my chances as the leader of the opposition. I know there are good leaders within the People Democratic Party (PDP), especially my boss Goodluck Jonathan.

“I have always said that as long as Jonathan is around, I will not present myself for leadership of this country, unless he decides not to run. If we can persuade him to come forward, I will support him with my blood. Out of modesty, he is still not ready. I hope you will meet him and encourage him to run.“He will do a better job because he has the experience. We know the prices of things; we know the level of inflation. His leadership recruitment was exemplary. We need leaders like him – young people with energy, foresight, and drive.”

Aside the fact that Jonathan is expected to govern the country for only one term, having done the first a term earlier, before his loss to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, the North is also considering that picking Jonathan will be a fair deal.

With Tinubu scheduled to end his first tenure in Aso Rock by May 2027, the political permutation is that if Jonathan decides to contest, the South will have served out its eight years by 2031, given the unwritten understanding among Nigerian politicians to allow for rotation of the presidency between both regions. 

Jonathan served as president from 2010 to 2015 after his then boss, Umar Yar’Adua died, before conceding defeat to Buhari after the 2015 polls.

Tinubu had after taking over the reins of power in May 2023, begun a slew of reforms, key among which were the ‘removal’ of fuel subsidy as well as the devaluation of the Naira, as a result of the merging of the official and parallel FX windows. These policies have had very harsh economic impact on Nigerians.

According to sources, during Jonathan’s regime, his government was largely inclusive, and addressed issues like the Almajiri system and creating initiatives for unemployed youths.

The northern region is said to be comfortable with Jonathan because, “they like and trust him because they benefitted from his government.” He maintained that if the Almajiri schools policy had continued, the number of out-of-school children would have reduced by now. “They see Jonathan as a safe bet,” source said.  

"And because of the aftermath of the last national protest, they believe that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has lost ground across the North. So, that’s the problem," he added. 

Buttressing this recently, the Dean of Borno Elders Forum, Prof Khalifa Dikwa, said members of the elite in the northern region of the country were unhappy with Tinubu's administration because of his “misfit and weak appointees” as well as his “anti-people policies”.

The political analyst, who spoke on national television, said the northern elite were “not happy because each of these policies affect the north entirely”. 

He said: “Most of the appointees are either misfits or weak or to the wrong places,” adding that the appointments by the Tinubu administration were “lopsided”.

Dikwa added that even “the southern elite should be annoyed because Nigeria is more than Lagos”, describing it as “provocative”.

Some prominent northerners had also raised eyebrows following the decision of the federal government to relocate some departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from Abuja to Lagos.

In trying to refute the narrative, Vice President Kashim Shettima, said recently that there was no truth in the claim from some quarters that Tinubu was working against the interest of the North to cripple the region.

The Vice President spoke in Kano when he received a federal government’s delegation which visited to condole with him on the death of his mother-in-law. Shettima maintained that Tinubu was not against the North.

He argued that the fact that Tinubu appointed northerners as the Minister of Defence; the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC) put a lie to the claim that the president was biased against the North.

“At an appropriate time we will lay out facts that the president is not against the North as being championed by some disgruntled elements who always want to cause disaffection between government and the citizens,” the vice president said.