Worried over the increasing popularity of the fast-growing All Progressives Congress (APC), in the South-West, the North-East and the North-West, President Goodluck Jonathan in conjunction with some of his top aides has put in motion strategies to stop the growth of the party.
High-ranking Aso Rock officials told a newspaper correspondent in Abuja, on Sunday, that this informed a recent meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and his strategists in the Presidential Villa recently.
“We knew that many people voted for the PDP during the presidential election in 2011 because of President Jonathan’s popularity and not because of the party he represented. This was the reason why the President won in four out of the six states in the South-West.
“With the alignment of the forces against the PDP and the President across the country, especially in the zone (South-West) now, we need to work hard to gain their confidence.”
One of the sources said that the meeting reviewed how Nigerians across the six geo-political zones might vote in 2015 and concluded that the Presidential election would no longer be easy for PDP.
The source added that Jonathan and the strategists agreed that the APC had a firm grip on the South-West and therefore resolved that concrete measures should be adopted to woo the zone.
One of such measures, according to him, may be to allocate the position of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria or the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, to the South-West.
It was learnt that those at the meeting were in unison that giving either of the two positions would go a long way in reducing allegation of marginalisation against the Jonathan administration by the South-West.
Another Aso Rock source said, “You must agree that we also need to do extra work in the North-East and North-West where our party’s popularity is waning to get as many people as possible on our side.”
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