Zoning: Bafarawa Chides PDP Northern Leaders

Written by This Day Saturday, 03 July 2010

Former Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa has criticised some northern leaders who converged in Abuja recently to map out strategies to take over power from President Goodluck Jonathan, describing their outing as a manifestation of in-fighting in the Peoples Democratic Party over zoning of the presidency.

Speaking with THISDAY in an interview, Bafarawa said that the group and its agitations should not be misconstrued as representing  the entire north and its leadership.
He  pointed out that people like General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), himself and a host of other prominent northerners were not part of the meeting.

In fact, they were not part of last Thursday Kaduna meeting of northern governors and leaders, which was clearly indicative of disharmony in the region over the issue of zoning.
Some leaders of the PDP have called for the dismantling of the purported zoning arrangement, saying it was unconstitutional and therefore not tenable.

They posited that Jonathan should contest the presidency in 2011.
Former Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih said in a June 14, 2010  letter to the National Working Committee of the party that the arrangement was never completely respected since its introduction.

He had argued that since it is no longer sacrosanct, it would be unfair to use it to preclude Jonarthan from seeking the party's presidential  ticket.Anenih had further suggested that Jonathan's performance should speak for him.

In a bid to block Jonathan who is being encouraged by Anenih and other party leaders from entering the presidential race, the PDP Northern Leaders met in Abuja and have been meeting elsewhere to strategise on how to stop him.

But Bafarawa, short of saying their effort was futile, declared that they were just ventilating their angst over the zoning issue of their party in the open, stressing that they should have done so within their party.

He said it was unfair to the nation for them to turn their internal party arrangement into a national issue as if that was the issue of good governance that should engage the attention of all.

According to him, “The Abuja meeting was a platform of Northern leaders of the PDP extraction, period.  What they did by that meeting and what they are still doing is, as far as I am concerned,  in-fighting over the survival or otherwise of their own internal zoning arrangement.

“Their effort (meeting to ensure preservation of their zoning arrangement) was not a political solution to the problem of the North. The solution to our problem and the entire nation's is good governance. 

"Indeed, the platform on which they engaged the issue of zoning was restrictive to the PDP and therefore it does not cut across the parties and it does not also appeal to the pan Nigeria tendency. So, it is an internal fight of the PDP.”

Bafarawa, who contested the 2007 presidential election on the platform of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), said that there was need for the PDP Northern leaders to expand the scope of their agitation.

“When they finish their in-fighting, they can then come and join us for a pan Nigerian resolve and approach to confront the looming monstrosity of one-party state that the PDP wants to turn Nigeria into.  It will not matter whether or not the party candidate emerged through zoning” he stated.

He explained that as one of the leaders of the opposition in the country, he could assure Nigerians that it (opposition) would provide an alternative platform to the PDP through which Nigerians could bring about a change of “the inept leadership foisted on the country through the instrumentality of the largely flawed 2007 election.”