2011: 'Operation Stop IBB’ • Northern elders plot ex-military president’s fall

Plots to stop IBB thickens

Northern elders, who are not favourably disposed to General Ibrahim Babangida’s candidature for 2011 have began subtle campaign in the north to stop him from running. This is even as the IBB’s group has also stepped up campaign to canvass support for the former Military President.


IBB

Only last Friday, one of the anti-IBB’s meetings was held in Kaduna, at the instance of a former Defence Minister under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The meeting, Daily Sun gathered, was attended by prominent northern elders, including a former Finance Minister. Interestingly, the Kaduna meeting coincided with the movement of the IBB’s sensitizing group, led by another former Agriculture Minister under former President Obasanjo to Borno and Kano states respectively, last weekend to meet with stakeholders in those areas on the need to support the IBB project.

But a die-in-the wool IBB supporter, who though was not part of the anti-IBB meeting held in Kaduna, has advised the former Military President not to contemplate running in 2011. He is Alhaji Mohammed AbdulRahman, a chieftain of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and founding member of the defunct Northern Elders Forum (NEF).

He told Daily Sun that rather than waste energy on wanting to run in 2011, IBB should use his contacts, experience and connections to influence who would emerge as the President. He wants IBB to play an advisory role in the country’s search for a “credible and purposeful,” leadership.

“I am aware so many people are urging him to run. But for me, I will advise the General to organize them, and find a leader from among them to lead us in 2011. PDP as a party is misbehaving today because we don’t have a good elder from among them that will call them to order, I think it is high time IBB assumes such a role. If IBB can do that politics in Nigeria will change. IBB’s current position in the scheme of things in Nigeria is more than that of a President of a country.

“Look at the crowd, when he lost Maryam, how many people out of power can pull such a crowd in this present day Nigeria, especially considering the timing? So that tells you that IBB occupies a special place in this country, and as one of his admirers, I would not want him to lose that prestige. So instead of him running, I will advise him to find a suitable candidate from among those he believed in and put such a person forward,” AbdulRahman added.

However, another IBB supporter based in Kaduna, Alhaji Hassan Mohammed Jallo, disagreed with AbdulRahman. Jallo, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State said that PDP should not dream of wining 2011 Presidential election if it fields any other candidate other than IBB.

He claimed that the present crop of leadership in the country under the PDP has failed the nation, and so should give way to IBB and his team in 2011 to steer the ship of Nigeria to an enviable height once again.

While noting that the PDP has been the country’s problem especially for imposing ailing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on Nigeria, he warned that the party was doomed should it field Yar’Adua for 2011 election:

“PDP should not make the mistake of giving Umaru Musa Yar’Adua the ticket in 2011 because no Nigerian will vote for Umaru and PDP cannot rig Umaru into power in 2011. I am telling you this without fear of any contradiction. I know PDP as a master rigger; we cannot rig Umaru into the Presidency in 2011. If they field Umaru in 2011, PDP will lose that election.

“I still repeat and I can repeat anywhere, that there is nobody that can fix Nigeria except IBB, and the only way PDP can win election, landslide victory is for the party to give IBB the ticket, only IBB can win election for the PDP come 2011. If PDP dares put any candidate apart from IBB, they will lose the elections.”

The Ghana option

Daily Sun learnt that part of the arrangement put in place by the opposition was to woo acting President Goodluck Jonathan to its side, so as allow a replay of the Ghanaian experience, where an incumbent supervised the defeat of his party by the opposition party in that country:

“You see, this man called Jonathan is not ambitious. Already, the PDP has foreclosed any possibility of giving him the ticket. And since the man after acting as C-in-C cannot turn around to be a running mate to anyone, we are looking at the possibility of entering into an alliance with him, so that whoever we are bringing on board would just spend one term, and we allow Jonathan to run subsequently.

“And from the type of person we see he is, he may even say he does not want to run at all, and still go ahead to provide a level playing ground, for us to take over power in 2011,” one of the leading members of the NDM told Daily Sun.