President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday said he would decide on whether or not to stand for election in 2011 after the release of the timetable and guidelines for the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
”I will not be in a position to say whether I will run or whether I will not run. It‘s too early to make a pronouncement,” Jonathan said during a media chat on the Nigerian Television Authority monitored by our correspondents.
He said, “It is better to wait for INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) to announce its timetable and guidelines. If I were to contest, I would declare my ambition close to my party’s (Peoples Democratic Party) primaries after INEC must have announced its guidelines.”
Going by INEC’s two option time table, the presidential election will hold either on January 22, 2011 or April 23, 2011.
The PDP is yet to fix its convention date due to internal crisis. The party got a new chairman (Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo) on Thursday, more than a month after the resignation of its former chairman, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor.
Our correspondents, however, learnt that it might hold on or before November.
The President, who also told a panel of journalists that ”security personnel” shielded the late President Umaru Yar’Adua from Nigerians, including top government officials during the period of his illness, said he would speak on the issue of zoning/rotational presidency at the appropriate time.
Jonathan said, “I do not want to make comments on zoning and rotational presidency. This (zoning) is an issue that has been misconstrued. The purported issue of zoning keeps coming up. At the appropriate time, whether I am contesting or not, I will tell Nigerians about zoning or no zoning.
“Anything you say about zoning will encourage some public debate, it is becoming a topical issue. Whether I run or not is immaterial in terms of election that we will conduct in 2011.
“I am committed to credible elections, and I mean it. I feel humiliated everywhere I go and people raise questions over the credibility of our electoral system. It is annoying and I will make sure no other Nigerian President ever has to go through that again.”
He also denied the existence of a cabal or kitchen cabinet in the Presidency and said that the responsibility of conducting free and fair elections rested on INEC under the control of the Federal Government.
The President said, “I am glad that the appointment of Prof. Attahiru Jega as the chairman of INEC has been applauded by several Nigerians. I did not go out to look for a perfect person, it is impossible to get a perfect person.”
He assured Nigerians that the electoral body would not lack funds to make the upcoming elections hitch-free.
Jonathan said, “INEC has good budgetary provisions. It will not be limited by funds in 2011. Apart from that, the controversial elections held in the past give our leaders credibility and acceptability problems globally.
“This time, the European Union, the United States and some other bodies have shown their interest in the 2011 elections. Outside our budgetary provisions, INEC will have external sources of funding. Funding will not limit INEC’s performance.”
The President said he felt Nigerians’ pulse each time he read newspapers, adding, “We don’t want to make politically- motivated comments. We will do our best to make sure that votes count and entrench good governance.”
On the power supply, Jonathan said his government was not thinking of new major projects but would focus on fixing areas that had caused problems for the power sector.
He said, “The power sector is almost like a chain with many weak links, which must be fixed to give us the minimum that we need. Our problem as a country is that we stopped investing in the power sector until the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo came on board.
“Our plan for Nigeria to have stable power is to complete reform in the power sector and bring the private sector on board.
“We believe that distribution and generation of power must be completely privatised. Government can concentrate on transmission, which can also be contracted out at the right time. We are trying to see if we can complete ongoing transmission and generation projects.”
Asked if the late Yar‘Adua‘s wife, Turai, hid the ailing leader from public view, Jonathan said, ”It was not the first lady alone” who shielded him.”
”There were senior government functionaries; they were not political office holders. They were security personnel,” Jonathan said.
”I asked the security agencies to look into the conduct of their security officers,” he said but did not elaborate on what that.
Jonathan acknowledged that he had his own fears about trying to see Yar‘Adua before his death on May 5.
He said, ”Supposing I forced my way in and after seeing him, something happened, and they started to make insinuations I was part of the problem.”
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