2015: No pact with North – Edwin Clark

A  prominent leader of South-South geo-political zone, Chief Edwin Clark, has said President Good luck Jonathan remains the sole candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 presidential elections.

Clark said in any democratic presidential system anywhere in the world, the incumbent president has the right of first choice if he is willing to contest for a second term.

Clark’s position, delivered in a strongly worded open reply to Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State on the 2015 elections and made available to Daily Newswatch, is coming on the heels of the former Kaduna State governor and chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Alhaji Balabe Musa, who highlighted several reasons why President Jonathan cannot be trusted with power in 2015.

Clark said, “Your statement (Governor Aliyu) on the tenure-ship agreement with Mr. President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is not only mischievous, but also insincere and dishonest.”

He said there is no speculation that the PDP plans to put President Jonathan forward as the sole candidate of the party in the coming convention.

“The practice in democratic presidential system of government is that an incumbent president remains the sole candidate of a political party at the party’s convention if he or she is willing to contest for a second term in office,” he stressed.

He said this is the practice in the United States of America from where Nigeria copied its own model of presidential system of government.

Clark said, “My dear Governor, you may wish to find out whether any candidate in the Democratic Party in the United States of America contested the primaries with President Bill Clinton when he decided to stand for a second tenure.”

The elder statesman added that it may also be interesting to find out whether any Republican Party faithful contested the Presidential primaries with President George Bush when he desired for a second tenure and, only recently, whether any Democratic Party member contested with President Barrack Obama when he offered himself for a second tenure in 2012.

According to Clark, when the American type of Presidential system was adopted in Nigeria in 1978/1979, former President Shehu Shagari was the sole candidate of the National Party of Nigeria(NPN) when he chose to run for a second tenure in the 1983 presidential election.

He said to further lend credence to the fact that a sitting president is entitled to a second term, “the ambitious and unpatriotic governors and some northern conservative politicians confirmed this constitutional provision by saying that it was the second term of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua that the North wanted to complete in 2011.

“In other words, the late President Yar’Adua was entitled to eight years in office, but Dr. Jonathan is entitled to only a single term, contrary to the 1999 constitution. Is that not double standard? What a shame.”

Clark said he read with disappointment and embarrassment the Niger State governor’s interview which was published in various national dailies that the governors 19 northern states signed an agreement with Jonathan to contest the 2011 elections on the condition that he will serve only a single tenure in office.

Refuting Aliyu’s statement, Clark said there was no agreement between the governors of the 19 northern states and Jonathan, stressing, “Agreement simply means a mutual understanding between two or more legally competent individuals or entities about their rights and duties regarding their past and future performances and a consideration that they must perform their own obligations in order to be bonded by the agreement.”

He said in the 2011 PDP presidential primaries held at Eagle Square, Aliyu directed his state delegates to vote against Jonathan.

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