Jonathan denies establishing committee for second term bid

President Goodluck Jonathan has described the media report insinuating that he empanelled a 21-member committee for his second term bid in 2015 as “totally untrue and without any basis in reality”.

President Goodluck Jonathan

A newspaper (not The PUNCH) on Monday reported that the President’s aides and associates had set up the committee to advise him on the viability of his contesting the 2015 presidential election.

However, the President, in a statement by his media aide, Dr. Reuben Abati, said he had yet to take a decision on whether or not he would seek re-election in 2015 and had not asked any individual or group to work on the idea on his behalf.

He also denied endorsing any person for any political office in the coming election.

The statement read, “As he has truthfully declared on several occasions, President Jonathan has not yet taken a decision on whether or not he will seek re-election in 2015 and has therefore not mandated any individual, committee or organisation to start working on his behalf for the 2015 elections.

“President Jonathan’s stated wish to be left alone to focus on delivering on his promise of good governance and national transformation without unnecessary distractions should be respected. Political jobbers and their collaborators in the media should stop heating up the polity with baseless speculations and falsehoods revolving around imaginary plans and schemes by the Presidency for the 2015 elections.

“The Presidency has also observed what seems to be an emerging trend whereby persons with their eyes fixated on political opportunities in future elections is beginning to use President Goodluck Jonathan’s name to promote themselves and their vaulting ambitions.

“It was clearly in this regard that some unscrupulous persons began to print 2015 campaign posters with President Jonathan’s photograph whereas the Independent National Electoral Commission has yet to announce the commencement of campaigns and political parties have yet to conduct primaries for the selection of candidates.”

Abati specifically referred to an advertorial, which showed Jonathan purportedly raising the hand of Akachukwu Nwankpo, under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party, suggesting that the President had endorsed him as the PDP governorship candidate for Anambra State.

He added, “For the benefit of the unwary, the Presidency emphatically states that President Jonathan has not endorsed any candidate for any position whatsoever ahead of the 2015 general elections neither has he commissioned persons to start campaigns for his own candidature.

“We therefore disown the claims and allegations of Presidential endorsements or the commencement of 2015 campaigns. The general public and affected stakeholders are advised to be wary of the kind of opportunism, misrepresentation and mischief that usually arise ahead of elections in general.”

Abati warned all 2015 political office seekers, and their sponsors to desist from unconscionable exploitation of the President’s name in the service of “jaded antics of self-aggrandisement, promotion and positioning”.