Despite denials from the presidency that President Goodluck Jonathan has not authorized any person or group to begin campaigns for his reelection in 2015; various groups have continued to flood the nation’s capital city, Abuja, with campaign posters of the president in respect of 2015 presidential polls, thereby flouting the electoral laws.
The president has had cause on several occasions to tell Nigerians that he has not deemed it appropriate to declare his intention given the enormous task of governance ahead, warning ambitious politicians against unnecessarily heating up the polity.
However, a check conducted around the federal capital territory yesterday by a correspondent of LEADERSHIP newspapers, revealed campaign posters and billboards of different dimensions and messages by individuals and groups outrightly campaigning for the president, while others were a bit more circumspect by calling on him to throw his hat in the ring for the 2015 presidential race.
The pre-cast pillars upholding Mabushi Bridge had many posters defacing them. Of particular note is that of one Alh. (Dr.) El-Kabir Wakili, a governorship aspirant in Nasarawa State, appearing together with the president calling on the electorate to “vote a winning team”. Sighted at the airport junction axis of Kado Expressway was a giant billboard with the bold inscription “Nigeria Youths For Goodluck Jonathan” in 2015.
Other campaign posters were indiscriminately pasted on available spaces especially bridge heads around the Federal Secretariat in the three-arm zone and Kashim Ibrahim way in Maitama district of the city in such a manner that they constituted an eyesore.
As at the time of filing this report, the presidency had yet to react to the recent sightings of the president’s campaign posters in the nation’s capital.
Fresh air again?