According to a source, the President who has begun a nation wide consultation with key stakeholders in the society, could not make progress with the NPLF because the delegation that he appointed to the seven-man joint committee with the Northern leaders did not report back to him.
For him not to leave any stone unturned ahead of next week’s election and to get the votes of the North, especially against the backdrop that the NPLF is of the view that zoning of the presidency to the North must be respected, it became imperative for the President, as the last move, to woo the emirs and Imams who will in turn convince the people of the region.
The team to deliver northern votes
A source confirmed that the President has deployed a team of senior Northern politicians to carry out this major assignment with an order that they must deliver the votes of the North to him through the Emirs and Muslim leaders, the Imams, Ulamas, among others.
According to the source, the team is made up of Alhaji Tanko Yakassai and Dr. Shettima Mustapha, two members of the Ciroma-led NPLF as well as Dr. Hassan Adamu, the Wakilin Adamawa and Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Tafidan Adamawa.
To kick start and set the space for President Jonathan’s meeting with the Northern Emirs and the Imams, it was gathered that last weekend, the Committee led by Dr. Mustapha, a former Minister of Agriculture and a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, BoT member had toured most of the North Central and the North-Eastern states.
Fifth columnists
Meanwhile, fifth columnists around the Presidency bent on scuttling President Goodluck Jonathan’s rapprochement with the Adamu Ciroma-led NPLF have been fingered in the gale of arrests of members of the Forum, according to information made available to Vanguard.
Secretary of the NPLF and a secretariat staff, Bello Abdulkadir and Farouk Bibi-Farouk were last week quizzed and detained over allegations that they were party to a meeting in Kaduna on February 17, 2011 at which a decision to poison President Jonathan was taken. Although both men have since been released, there were fears that more members of the NPLF may be arrested over the allegation.
But investigations by the NPLF established that neither Jonathan nor any member of his family was in any way remotely connected to the gale of arrests.
Indeed, a source close to the NPLF revealed that 5th Columnists around the Presidency had orchestrated last week’s arrest of Abdulkadir and Farouk.
The source said that some members of the G20 have been identified as the arrowheads who “stampeded” the arrest of the NPLF Scribe and a secretariat staff.
According to the source, those behind the plot are doing it for self preservation and relevance.
“They want to scuttle the rapprochement between President Jonathan and the Ciroma group. If there is a round table at which former military President Ibrahim Babangida, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. Aliyu Gusau, Ciroma and co are to be seated with President Jonathan, you can be sure that there can never be a space for the likes of Gana,” the source said.
It was gathered that the 5th Columnists around the President deliberately misled the SSS into making these arrests to torpedo the rapprochement which Jonathan considers desirable to realising victory at the April 2011 presidential election.
According to the source, President Jonathan when confronted with the facts was “astonished and lost for words.”
The NPLF source said that the arrests portend danger for the security, unity and stability of the country.
“It (arrests) portends serious danger for the country if influential people around the President can now instigate the SSS to clamp people into detention for selfish and inordinate ambition,” the source said.
Vanguard
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