President Jonathan can’t buy our support in 2015 – Northern elders

Dr. Paul Unongo

The Northern Elders’ Forum has said its support can’t be bought by President Goodluck Jonathan or any other politician ahead of the 2015 general election.

In reaction to speculations that President Jonathan had bribed some prominent northerners to sabotage the North’s opposition to his re-election, spokesman for the forum, Dr. Paul Unongo, said nobody had attempted to buy over the northern elders.

In an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, Unongo said Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, who claimed he had a list of 400 northern leaders that had been bought over by Jonathan, should expatiate on it.

When asked if Jonathan or any politician had bought the support of the forum’s members, Unongo said, “I can speak only for the elders’ forum. At the level of the elders’ forum, I don’t think anybody can buy us and I don’t think anybody tried to buy us. What we have always tried to do is to reconcile people. It is maturity for people to reconcile. We have become elders and know that there is so much bad blood and we try to reconcile people.

“I like people who make speculations to expatiate on their speculations themselves. I have a lot of respect for Governor Aliyu Babangida. If he says such, he must have very good reasons. He is in a better position to clarify that.”

He said the northerners respected the decision of the rebel Peoples Democratic Party governors to move to the All Progressives Congress, saying the move was a welcome development to the country’s democracy.

Unongo said that the rebel PDP governors had talked with some northern elders complaining of how unfairly they, their states and the North had been treated by Jonathan’s administration and the PDP National Chairman, Bamanga Tukur.

He said, “No party should field candidates, give these candidates the opportunity to be leaders in their states and then treat them as though they are not important. They have decided to fight back; to say though they won elections on the platform of the PDP, they won their elections without Jonathan and Bamanga Tukur.

“It’s a pity that a political party at this time can tell large sections of the society that they are not needed. It is a terrible development in that direction. But in terms of political growth and development, it is a tremendously good thing that has happened to Nigeria. I support them for their courage. They have done a courageous thing that Nigerians should support.”