PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has used every opportunity available to stress the point that it is too early to begin preparations for 2015. He said so again last Sunday in Lagos at the presentation of a book, Sure And Steady Transformation, which documents his achievements in office.Speaking through his Senior Special Adviser on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Mr. Oronto Douglas, President Jonathan said politics is such a breathtaking game that 24 hours is even considered too long for preparation, and therefore wondered why people should begin warming up for a race that is almost three clear years away.What the President did not add is the fact that the rules of the game are not clear-cut. For instance, no umpire stands at the threshold as such and shoots a gun to announce take-off. The game neither has a definite beginning nor ending. Every move in the unending trajectory counts positively or negatively.If a governor fails to smile at the President when it is desirable, it is counted against him. If a local government chairman fails to show up at the birthday ceremony of the governor's wife, it is a point down. Merely seen with non-members of the political family in the randomness of physical living could count as a huge deficit.It is the reason, for instance, why any busy camera lens should not capture Doyin Okupe, Presidential Assistant on Public Communications, sitting with Lai Mohammed, Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). For all you care, both men may just be sitting together at the protocol lounge waiting to board a plane from Lagos to Abuja but a diabolic schemer will apply all the enhancements of Photoshop, load the innocuous picture with unintended interpretations and take same to President Jonathan as exhibit of Okupe's divided loyalty.That is the way of politics in Nigeria. It is a continuous assessment programme that requires eternal vigilance. Nothing is left to mature naturally and there is perpetual scheming by the players to earn cheap points ahead of the real test.Sule Lamido, the Jigawa State governor, has begun scheming for the plum position. The governor is being peddled as the man some kingmakers (Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida have been repeatedly mentioned) have anointed to take over from Jonathan in 2015 and he is all too ready to sound it loud.Lamido's refusal to accompany President Jonathan on a working visit to Malawi and Botswana is being seen through the 2015 prism. It is said that the governor has begun in earnest to define the battle lines so that Jonathan is not erroneously encouraged to nurse false hopes in his quest for a mandate renewal. A source said that at a recent meeting between the PDP governors and the President, the latter pointedly told Lamido that he (Lamido) stayed away from the Botswana/Malawi trip because of 2015.The full picture of the Lamido's project purportedly has Rivers State governor, Chibuike Amaechi, in the background. They say Amaechi, the child of destiny who got into office without standing for election, is warming up to pair with Lamido in the 2015 race.Surprisingly, Amaechi is having a good push from the most unlikely quarters, former President Obasanjo, who is speculated to be working assiduously with Babangida to deliver a Lamido/Amaechi presidency in 2015.Obasanjo And Rivers PoliticsOBASANJO, it was, who cast spanner in Amaechi's works in 2007 when he propounded the 'k-leg' theory regarding the PDP governorship primaries in Rivers State. Accordingly, he caused the PDP to withdraw the ticket already given to Amaechi to contest the election. The nut was too hard for Amaechi to crack until a benevolent spirit came to his rescue.The Supreme Court to which Amaechi appealed the case because it was a pre-election matter, entered judgment against the PDP and declared Amaechi the party's right candidate, and therefore the governor since the party and not an individual won the election. That was how Amaechi replaced Celestine Omehia as governor on October 26, 2007 without standing election and in spite of the PDP and President Obasanjo.Interestingly, while Obasanjo pushed Amaechi underground, the same Obasanjo encouraged the then governor of the state, Dr. Peter Odili, to prepare for the big dance because it had become the turn of the South-South to produce the president.Odili gallantly but thoughtlessly picked up the challenge. He was all over town, acquiring chieftaincy titles and honours in a most extravagant campaign to announce his ambition across the country ahead the PDP presidential primary. He was the Obafunmilayo of the Source in the Southwest; something something in the Southeast and another something something in the North.There was no threatening challenge and Odili looked good to pick the ticket. For one thing, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who would have posed a threat, had been pushed away from the PDP into a forced alliance with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the emerging Action Congress (AC). For another, none in the line-up could match Odili's capacity to spread cash. The intensity was so high that he approximated the PDP, which some quarters actually rechristened Peter Dey Pay (PDP).But when it mattered most, all manners of stories, including corruption charges, were woven to stop Odili at the PDP convention. He was not even given the opportunity to participate after the epic preparations. Obasanjo told him to step down for the preferred candidate, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and he did.And that was most shrewd because in those imperial days, wise politicians listened when Baba Obasanjo spoke. Atiku Abubakar, who refused to listen, did not have a good story to tell. The Turaki Adamawa and the one who once owned the PDP with his Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) machinery is today struggling to regain a foothold because instead of listening, he was talking the same time Baba was talking.Back to Amaechi! In six years, the rejected stone has metamorphosed into the builder's choice. Is OBJ genuinely repentant and now interested in doing business with the k-legged man or merely seeking a second chance to finish what he could not accomplish the first time' Either way, caution is the word and some elders in Port Harcourt should tell Amaechi, preferably in his Ikwerre dialect, that the devil does not offer free lunch and that it is also advisable to avoid eating with the devil even with a long spoon.Other Factors In The South-SouthFOR now, the South-South's heritage is open and nothing has been specifically apportioned. Amaechi is only a contender in a field that remains open to more adventurers. For instance, penultimate week, the South-South Peoples Assembly (SSPA), which was inaugurated in Calabar in November 2004, to create a regional platform, came alive in Warri after years of inactivity.The story in town is that the assembly, which has had a tortuous history, virtually breaking into two assemblies at one point because Peter Odili and former Akwa Ibom State governor, Obong Victor Attah could not agree on a uniform purpose, is being jerked back to life by the drumbeats of 2015.Then, while Odili was aiming for gold (president), Attah felt silver (vice president) was a more realistic ambition; thus, resulting in two opposing tendencies and in a way dual leadership in the assembly. The late Dr. Matthew Mbu ably supported by the Chairman of DAAR Communications, Alegho Raymond Dokpesi, championed the Odili school of thought while South-South leader, Chief E.K Clark, ran with Attah.It was not quite a full assembly in Warri on August 6 because of the six governors of the South-South, only Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta, who hosted the meeting, was in attendance. Besides, the flow of thoughts and expressions is least supportive of a vice president for the region in 2015. The assembly says Jonathan should exhaust his two tenures.Even so, the vice presidency may be incubated as a fallback plan. And it may become a different ball game when it is time to implement the Plan B. For example, the Urhobo, who are the second largest group in the region and fifth largest in the country, and contributor of a good percentage of the oil and gas revenue, may kick. They have persistently complained of being marginalised in the Jonathan show.'We are ready to take our destiny in our hands in 2015,' said one leader of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) in Warri, adding, 'we have sent several letters, requesting audience with the President but he has refused to see us in spite of our total support for him in the last election.'Many other groups, including the Ibibio, Efik and even the Ijaw, may kick, too. Analysts point at the persistent quarrel between Amaechi and the Ijaws in Rivers State over demolition of water front settlements mainly occupied by Ijaw elements. The dispute between Rivers and Akwa Ibom States over the ownership of some 76 oil wells, which was settled in favour of the former, is also being thrown up as a sore point in the regional calculations.The odds are more. Amaechi's position that bare-faced criminals be separated from genuine agitators and punished according to the law had put him in direct confrontation with warlords like Ateke Tom, the late Soboma George and Farah Dagogo, all of whom he had chased out of town prior to the Federal Government Amnesty. He never supported the lumping together of fighters with murderers in the amnesty deal and that was construed as opposition to the initiative.In fact, that Amaechi is contemplating being vice president, when the President's body language is saying things to the contrary, is seen by the President's camp as an unpardonable affront. And if Jonathan proves a good student of the Obasanjo brand of politics (indeed, watchers of the polity say the President is already a very good student, given what happened in this year's governorship election in Bayelsa State), he will have no qualms reaching for the Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD), which is the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to slow down Amaechi's advancement at the appropriate time.Taking all these into consideration, watchers of the emerging political chess game contend that Amaechi, for now, ranks less than an undisputed regional champion and may experience real difficulties mobilising the entire South-South to support his ambition to become vice president in 2015.What cannot be fathomed right away in the permutations is the content of luck in the Amaechi project. Who knows; the same Hand of God, who lifted him high in 2007 when all hope was lost, may resurface again to settle the matter at hand beyond human manipulations. After all, Jonathan himself has been running largely on good luck and nothing says good luck is for the President alone.The Northern ChallengeTHE North has never pretended about 2015. It sounds most time as if it is only tolerating Jonathan till 2015 beyond which it will settle for nothing less than the presidency. There are several scenarios even within the PDP. Sule Lamido is already carrying on as president-in-waiting.His Niger State counterpart, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, who is also chairman of the Northern Governors' Forum, uses every opportunity to underscore his inevitability in the choice of a Northern presidential candidate in 2015. His is understandable because he has never hidden his disapproval of the Jonathan presidency, which he feels is a usurpation of the Northern slot of eight years.In the 2011 build-up, Aliyu was among the few who stayed aloof almost all through while others, including even Lamido, jumped on board to build a Northern support for Jonathan.This time around, not too many Northern heavy weights are openly showing support for Jonathan. Maybe it is still too early to get a clear picture. What is, however, clear is that the Northern opposition to Jonathan's continued stay in Aso Rock beyond 2015 is mounting on more than one front. Atiku Abubakar has reportedly begun the renovation of his campaign office in Abuja, in readiness for the big dance.Outside the PDP, presidential election regular, General Muhammadu Buhari, is reviewing strategy to strike a winning formula. The merger talks by his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) with the ACN is holding good prospects and the PDP camp seems worried. If the marriage works, the Southwest, which voted massively for the PDP in the 2011 presidential election, will be lost.Jonathan And The PDP Internal PoliticsTHE challenge is two-prong for President Jonathan. To face the opposition squarely in the 2015 presidential election, he must win the PDP ticket first. The power points in the party are fairly diffused in the governors, national legislators, state chairmen and the national party officers.But in the matter of choosing the party's presidential flagbearer, the governors represent the backbone because they control the bulk of the delegates. In this regard, the zone whose governors will give Jonathan the least trouble is the South-South, given that the President sinks Amaechi in the contest for zonal supremacy.The Southwest is dicey because Baba Obasanjo, who has reportedly broken ranks with Jonathan, will like to prove a point. That leaves Jonathan with the Southeast where support for him, amid the heightening staccato for Igbo presidency, is still clearly above average.The North is where the opposition is domiciled and so prospects across the zones will be most minimal no matter what Vice President Namadi Sambo may do to help the situation. In fact, Sambo is a target because much of this initial noisemaking in every corner of the vast North may turn out negotiation strategies to engage the President in his choice of a running mate. Some of the governors only wish to replace Sambo as Jonathan's deputy.In all, some believe that the fight for the PDP ticket could be as fierce as the actual election itself. Others are, however, more optimistic, saying the governors' opposition against Jonathan will collapse like a pack of cards when push comes to shove and Jonathan is compelled to reach for the WMD, to launch a counter offensive.The Real BattleGENERAL Buhari, who runs the CPC like a private company, is not envisaging any problem picking the party ticket for the presidential election. His prayer, naturally, would be for Jonathan to pick the PDP ticket so that he would so easily invoke the anti-Jonathan sentiments in the North, to sweep clean the region's votes.If Buhari's marriage with Tinubu is consummated, his running mate will come from the Southwest, to seal the fate of the PDP in that zone. The couple will then move down south and eastward for whatever they can harvest in both zones where their presence is not as strong.If Jonathan has a game changer or an ace card, he is still holding it tight to his chest. He keeps saying time is not ripe to launch out. If he manages in the end to overwhelm the internal forces in the PDP with the WMD and clinch the ticket, the same weapon may prove ineffective in the open battle. He has approximately two and half years or so to develop a winning formula, which must however derive, almost entirely, from his performance as a sitting President.It is for this reason that the presentation of Sure And Steady Transformation, which loudly proclaims the achievements of his administration, can be described as a step in the right direction.
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