Why North Should Support Jonathan – Eze Robinson

The Special National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that featured the presidential primary which produced incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s flagbearer for the forth-coming presidential election in April, has come and gone but the memory lingers on. One aspect of the event that cannot be easily forgotten is the massive support President Jonathan garnered from the traditional institution. From the palace of a first class traditional ruler in Rivers State – the Eze Ekpeye Logbo, Eze (Flt Lt) Robinson O. Robinson came a special delegation that took the Eagle Square venue of the convention by storm.

The Tide investigation at the event showed that it was only Eze Robinson that sent such a delegation to the Eagle Square and this aroused curiosity since the Ekpeye paramount ruler is not known to be a politician and is certainly not one. The Tide investigation also revealed that the delegation comprised of over eighty (80) persons and arrived the venue in three buses (from Port Harcourt). The list includes former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, former council chairmen and councillors, opinion leaders and youths. And it was Eze Robinson who sponsored them, paid for their accommodation and feeding in Abuja, printed T-shirts and Fez caps for them as well as life-size banners that adorned the Eagle Square, presidential villa and the secretariat of the Goodluck/Sambo Campaign Organisation in the Central Area of the Federal Capital.

Although the traditional ruler and one-time chairman of Rivers State Traditional Rulers Council was not spotted at the venue of the convention where the delegation sang Jonathan’s praises and campaigned vigorously for him, The Tide’s curiosity brought the tabloid face to face with him, after the convention –in his palace in Port Harcourt.

First, The Tide sought to know why he, of all traditional rulers in the country, undertook such a venture. His answer came readily: “Solidarity!” He explained that “when you see your son vying for something in far away place, far from home – you’ll send people to cheer him up, to pray for him there so that he’ll succeed. If he sees people from home, he’ll definitely feel proud that his people have not abandoned him. That is why we did it (sent delegation to Abuja).

Beyond this, he said he believes that Jonathan is one man that has the potential of salvaging the nation. His conviction is borne out of what he knows of the president before his ascendancy to power. He told The Tide that Jonathan did all his life jobs in Port Harcourt: was in the defunct OMPADEC as director, then became a lecturer at the then College of Education (COE) now University of Education, Port Harcourt; so he monitored him closely and knew him well. His verdict: “He is somebody we think will be able to salvage Nigeria”!

Eze Ekpeye Logbo’s assessment of Jonathan as President, before the presidential primary also came in handy: “Considering that he has just come in (as president) and the circumstances (under) which he came in, he was not prepared for what has happened and he was pushed into the job, and having spent eight months; the way he has grappled with the situation in Nigeria, in the areas of electricity, it improved from what it used to be; the area of petroleum supply, it has improved considerably. Usually, in December/January, there’s supposed to be abnormality; there’s (usually) queue in all the petrol stations, people sleep at the filling stations but he came under eight months as the president, there was no queue for the first time, at the petrol stations. And the way he’s grappling with the education sector and the health sector, there’s no doubt that given full four years (tenure), there’ll be a lot of changes for good”.

The traditional ruler would want the whole country to see the Jonathan presidency and his quest to seek the people’s endorsement for the April presidential election from this perspective. He was, however, particular about the North that sings discordant tunes on the issues. He said the North should join the South-South geo-political zone where Jonathan  hails from to throw its weight around the president in the upcoming weeks preceding the general election and adduced reasons that appear cogent in support of this position he is canvassing.

His words: “The old Rivers State, ie (the present Bayelsa and Rivers State) has been voting for the North…During Tafawa Belewa era, Old Rivers State in the then Eastern region – the minority area, voted for Tafawa Belewa; when Alhaji Shehu Shagari came, Rivers State voted for Shagari; even at the time Alhaji Bashir Tofa contested with Chief Moshood Abiola – even with the North, some of the Northern states voting for Abiola, Rivers State  stood firm and voted massively for Tofa! We’ve always supported Northern candidates, so this time around that it is a candidate from the minority (zone), I am calling on our Northern brothers and sisters to at least reciprocate our gestures (by voting massively for Jonathan)”.

He was not done yet, as he told The Tide further: “We (minority) have been their (North’s) ally” and cited as case in point to buttress this. According to him, First Republic’s Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) became a national party because of the ally with the Niger Delta Congress (NDC), on which platform, (Chief) Melford Okilo (of blessed memory) won election to the Federal House of Representatives, asserting that, that was the only ally that made the NPC a national party, otherwise the northern party should have lost national posture. “So it was Rivers, a minority people that made NPC a national party”, he affirmed.

Eze Robinson insisted that “we’ve always been firm with them so they should reciprocate for once, that someone from that very area that has been supporting them, by providence, is the candidate for that seat now. They should forget whatever interest they have and support him”, adding that he’ll go pleading with all Northern Emirs to do this for the minority of the South-South zone – their tested ally “so that we wouldn’t be seen as people who are stupid that all the support we gave them (from First Republic till now), we’re stupid people”.

Robinson told The Tide that if the North fails to support Jonathan which translates to supporting their ally of the South-South, the South-South zone could become a laughing stock in the eyes of those he identified as ‘detractors’.

“If they don’t support us, our detractors will say, ‘I think, they were supporting the North, now that it’s their turn, has the North supported them? They’ll laugh at us, our detractors will laugh at us so the North should support a Riversman, Bayelsa person’, he pleaded.

In the weeks before the elections, Eze Robinson indicated that he would take this plea to the palaces of some of the Northern colleagues to drum home the message that “they should help to ensure that Jonathan becomes the president of this country (after the April presidential election)…I’m still hoping to visit the Emirs and call on them to support Jonathan. I, definitely will visit some of them to send my message home”.

Before his tour of the North on the Jonathan presidency, however, his message to the North is clear: “We’ve been a faithful ally! Its not easy for you to push aside your ally!”

Drawing inspiration from the United States/Britain’s cum ex-Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak’s affiliation, Eze (Flt Lt) Robinson was down to earth, as he told the North: “You can see it in Egypt, Britain and America. It was difficult for them (Britain and America) to call Mubarak to step down because he was a faithful ally… they found it difficult to support the (Egyptian) demonstrators, even though they said, ‘yes, they have all the right – that what they’re doing (protesting) is right, but to say, the man should step down by force, as it was in Tunisia, it was difficult; they could not come out to say it because he’s a faithful ally – and your ally at times of need should show solidarity (to you)”

Robinson said, he is in support of the on-going wooing of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who was Jonathan’s arch rival at the presidential primary into Jonathan’s camp although he doesn’t believe in Atiku as a person because he knows him closely.

“Vote in people who will give this country a good service, definitely Atiku is not one of them …(however), once you’ve won an election, you’re now for everybody; everybody should come on board and join you. You give people a chance to come and join you, unless somebody who says: ‘I won’t go’ so whoever is mediating to bring Atiku on board, better! I support. We should leave no stone unturn for the success of Jonathan, come April this year”.

Beyond the support of the North and opposition leaders like Atiku, Robinson also said that the support of the South East and South West should also be enlisted totally and, that they should all see Jonathan as “possible candidate to save the country and take her to next level.

Justus Awaji, Abuja