USA Africa Dialogue Series - Exposed! - How Jonathan Plans to Win 2015 Presidential Ele.....

Exposed! - How Jonathan Plans to Win 2015 Presidential Ele.....
Category: SPECIAL REPORTS
Published on Thursday, 02 January 2014 10:48

Written by Dr. Aminu Gamawa

If you think President Goodluck Jonathan has no plan or strategy on
how to win the 2015 presidential election you are dead wrong. I just
finished reading a document produced by Goodluck Jonathan's political
advisers and strategists. The title of the document is "2013-2015:
Political power and governance road map."

Don't ask me how or where I got the document. It is a carefully
written document that identified and analyzed the strengths and
weaknesses of President Jonathan, and his chances of winning the 2015
presidential election, if he decides to contest. It is the good, the
bad and the ugly of how Jonathan and his team will approach 2015.

In the introduction, authors of the document acknowledged that a new
political order has emerged which seriously pose a threat to the
political order created by Jonathan and his team. According to the
document, "The public perception of government, the tension and
contradictions within the PDP, extremist insurgencies and grave
national security concerns, and desperation by the opposition parties
to cobble together a mega-party are concrete indications of the
struggle between an old and a newly constituted national power
arrangement."

The authors alleged that "there is sufficient evidence that attests to
a well-oiled grand strategy to diminish the person of Mr President and
the institution of the presidency, sabotage and impede the efficient
execution of public policies, distract and compromise key
institutions, and ensure a chaotic and unpredictable outcome in the
2015 general elections. Because these forces are critically entrenched
in the key organs of the PDP, in the NASS, among the ranks of the
party's governors, in the media, within dominant ethnic and regional
political formations and violent non-state actors, this struggle will
become more acute and intense as the nation plots its political graph
and trajectory to the 2015 general elections."

The document started with a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats (SWOT) analysis of the person of President Jonathan and the
"new national power center he has constructed." The following is
directly from the document.

Strengths

•Power of incumbency and utilization of governance machinery,
especially the careful and legal deployment of its propaganda and
coercive apparatuses

•Secure financial resources base and leveraging on strategic media assets

•Formidable political apparatus—a reformed, disciplined and tightly
controlled PDP—with significant presence in all the 36 states and
dominant control over 23 states

•Deep-rooted, nation-wide support structures in the shape of GSG, N2G
and literally speaking, hundreds of youth, women and regional
affiliates controlled and supervised by the more dominant support
structures

•Effective and efficient implementation of the transformation agenda
in critical national sectors

•High personal likeability rating which has to be further strengthened
and deepened

•When chips are down immense support will be secured from the National
Council of State by ex-leaders who value continuity and order over
instability and chaos

Weaknesses

•A less than forceful Presidential presence and infective deployment
and application of presidential power

•The perceived appropriation of presidential advocacy space by
exuberant partisans and fanatical supporters who project a wrong image
of the presidency as a regional agenda. This situation tends to
alienate moderate political forces across the country whose sense of
co-ownership of the presidency appears diminished

•A perceived sense of distance between the Presidency and the PDP that
has opened the space for internal dissention and outright rebellion by
party stalwarts. This sense of disinterest and disengagement has
engendered a culture of apology among Presidential spokespersons
whenever matters connecting Mr President and the party appear on the
public sphere

•Following on the above, the reality of Mr President being the leaders
of the nation and the LEADER OF THE PARTY is not sufficiently grounded

•A technocratic cabinet that is not fully politically engaged,
especially in media advocacy and community-wide outreach programmes.
This unhelpful situation out burdens a handful regime insiders in
their constant defense of The Presidency and the Transformation agenda

•A presidential communication strategy that is weak on proactive
propaganda and rapid response

•Inability of Presidential power strategists to manage the
relationship between The Presidency and the NASS to the degree that
the later, particularly the HOR, which is dominated by the PDP,
appears as an outfit and mouthpiece of the opposition

•Problematic relationship between the Presidency and some former heads
of State when, in actuality, they should constitute the bedrock of his
support

Opportunities

•Exploiting the current fractured state of the NGF for maximum
political advantage by strengthening the co-operative faction and
sustaining the pressure on recalcitrant PDP governors

•Exploiting the opportunities inherent in the putative fracturing of
the Northern Governors' Forum by strengthening co-operative governors
and sustaining pressure, directly and through different front
organizations, on the recalcitrant governors

•Playing on the political ambitions of regional champions, especially
in the North, to the degree and extent that no unanimity of political
purpose and cohesive agenda is ever achieved

•The APC may appear as a formidable threat initially but substantive
opportunities will abound when ambitions and egos clash among its
principal promoters. Strategic planning should factor in the scenario
in the designing of intervention blueprint

•Exploiting the immense public opinion opportunities in the current
war against terror in the North, especially given the steady successes
thus far recorded by the NSA, and the military high command through
the JTF

•Utilizing the social and economic empowering and inclusive space
provided by SURE-P, particularly its integrated community empowerment
schemes, to advertise and show case the populist and pro-people
orientation of the government

Threats

There are sufficient grounds to believe that the NASS continues to
pose a threat to the effective exercise of Presidential power in the
areas of budget-making processes and the on-going amendments of the
constitution with specific reference to devolution of power and tenure
of elected officials

•Formidable forces in both the NGF and the NNGF continue to pose
significant threat to the political calculations and choices open to
Mr President

•Regional alliances among dominant ethnic blocks may constitute a
threat to the political choices open to Mr President

•If the APC does not implode along the way, it will constitute a real
threat to the PDP and Mr President

•Extremist insurgencies in the North and the burgeoning oil theft in
the Niger Delta are already sources of concern and worry; the way and
manner these issues are dealt with will determine the degree to which
they will pose a threat down the line

•Regrettably, the current, crisis-ridden state of the PDP poses
significant threat to the realization of the party's political
ambition in 2015, including that of Mr President.

The SWOT analysis above is just a small excerpt from the document. The
document was written after the New PDP was created but before the G5
and members of House of Representatives defected to APC. The rest of
the document is an in depth analysis of what the PDP and President
Jonathan should do to win the 2015 elections. This include changing
perception of Nigerians through propaganda, establishment of a
political intelligence unit, reforming PDP, fund mobilization
strategies, causing political division in the North and South West,
appointing politicians with grassroots support as ministers, deploying
SURE-P for political purposes, using the civil society organizations
and professionals organizations, increasing the number of registered
voters in South-South, North central and South-East, and reducing the
number of voters in the North and South West, etc.

I will tell you more when I have time. Currently I am busy and I will
take a break from Facebook for a while.

- Aminu Gamawa

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ABDULLAHI BARAU

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