2015: Fani-Kayode May Head Jonathan’s Media Team….............
Leadership
April 13, 2014
As the build-up to the 2015 election gathers momentum, President Goodluck Jonathan seems to be leaving nothing to chance as he intensifies recruitment of members of his campaign team.
The latest in the recruitment drive is the overture extended to former minister of aviation Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who was recently spotted in the Presidential Villa where he had meetings with the president and later attended another meeting with the president’s chief of staff.
LEADERSHIP Sunday checks reveal that the president’s think-tank is sparing no effort at winning the support of those perceived to be averse to the president’s return to Aso Rock in 2015.
“Barring all unforeseen circumstances, (Femi) Fani-Kayode is coming back to the PDP and, once this is done, he would head the media team for the presidential campaign of President Jonathan. We know he has what it takes to do the job. He had been a presidential spokesman and his influence in the media including the social media, his articulation, boldness and other factors are the reasons he has been pencilled in for the job,” a Presidency source said.
When contacted to comment on the issue, Chief Fani-Kayode, who was once a special adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on public affairs, denied knowledge of the proposal. He sent a text message to our correspondent which reads, “It is not true. I am not aware of anything like that. Thank you.”
President Jonathan is desperately in need of foot soldiers in the south-west who would help him neutralise the duo of former President Obasanjo and national leader of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Although Jonathan has not declared his intention to run and he even resisted the pressure on him last Friday at the Enugu rally, there is every indication that he has made up his mind to run and the ongoing zonal rallies are said to be part of his plan to test the ground.
Investigations show that the fear of the president over the north-west that has the highest number of votes was laid to rest with the defection of former Kano State governor and former presidential candidate of the defunct ANPP Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau and his Sokoto State counterpart, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa.
He is also said to be at peace with the north-central, given the loyalty of people like Senate president David Mark and Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue. But the south-west is said to be giving him a headache with the stiff opposition coming from Obasanjo and Tinubu.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY has it on a good authority that it was part of his attempt to woo the Yoruba that led to the appointment of the Chief of Staff, General Jones Arogbofa, whose elder brother is a chieftain of Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba social cultural group, and who represents the group in the confab. Another beneficiary of the new agenda for the zone is the director-general of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Dr Sola Omole.
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