The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) North-West zone, yesterday insisted that Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, ratified its communiqué calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to run for the presidency in 2015.
The Deputy Governor of Jigawa State, Ahmed Mahmud Gumel, who represented Lamido at the stakeholders’ meeting in Kaduna last week, said at a media briefing in Dutse that they were not part of the decision supporting the president’s second term ambition because the communiqué was already prepared before the meeting.
Chairman of the communiqué drafting committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Aminu Wali said in a statement that Lamido, like all other governors from the zone, agreed to support Jonathan in 2015, stressing that the video footage of the meeting proved the Jigawa governor’s endorsement.
Wali said, “Our attention has been drawn to a publication widely circulated in the media purported to have emanated from the Jigawa State governor challenging the resolution of our expanded stakeholders meeting where in he claimed that Jigawa State was not part of the resolution.
“Let me firmly and explicitly state that the decision to hold the expanded stakeholders meeting was a culmination of several meetings held amongst the key stakeholders of the zone and Jigawa State was always represented by the deputy governor in such meetings. It was also agreed at such fora that each state must first hold its stakeholders meeting before the expanded meeting, which we believe was complied with by each state chapter of the party”.
The minister pointed out that he was directed to read the communique and make it public saying this accounts for the presence of the governors and deputy governors including that of Jigawa State standing behind him while he was reading the communiqué.
However, the deputy governor has stood by his statement, insisting that the Jigawa State government was not in support of Jonathan’s endorsement.
The deputy governor’s Director of Press, Alhaji Ahmed Haruna Gumel, said “The Deputy Governor, Ahmed Mahmud Gumel, has just told me that the Jigawa state government have already made their case on the northwest meeting of the PDP and it stand buy its statement. Aminu Wali as an individual and a party member is free to say whatever he wants to say”.
