As opposition mounts towards his reelection come 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan has deployed his foot soldiers on a mission to reach out to prominent groups in the country on the need to support his second term ambition.
One of such groups is Oodua Peoples’ Congress, OPC, whose national coordinator, Otunba Gani Adams, played host to Special Adviser to the President on the Niger Delta and Chairman, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Hon. Kingsley Kuku, yesterday in Lagos.
Although the duo denied that their closed door meeting which lasted for several hours did not centre on discussions pertaining to Mr. Jonathan’s 2015 ambition, the timing of the visit could not have been a coincidence just as a reliable source disclosed that the meeting was in line with the president’s agenda to woo the South-West to his side.
Speaking after they emerged from their meeting, Otunba Adams noted that President Jonathan had the constitutional right to contest for a second term.
“Since he is passing through a process that is constitutional, he has a right to contest,” Otunba Adams said.
He added that Jonathan’s first two years in office was a completion of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Ádua tenure.
Nonetheless, he said “it is left for Nigerians to decide whether they want him or not. In my own humble opinion he has right to contest for second tenure.”
Dismissing the suggestion that his visit to the OPC chief had anything to do with politics, Mr. Kuku said, “I advise Nigerians not to read any political meaning to the visit.
“Otunba Gani Adams and I share several bond, we come from the same state, we struggled together against the military and above all, we have the same ideology.
“Since I assumed office as Special Adviser to the President on the Niger Delta and Chairman, Presidential Amnesty Programme, I haven’t seen my brother,” Kuku explained.
On continuation of amnesty programme post-2015, the presidential aide explained that there were so many people in the Niger Delta, South-South, South East and the North where youths and women needed some form of empowerment.
-Vanguard
