Sambo leads pro-Jonathan rally in Enugu

Vice-President Mohammed Sambo led a re-election rally for President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday in Enugu.

The rally, a brainchild of Governor Sullivan Chime, was under the auspices of the Enugu Movement for the Re-Election of Jonathan (EMJ).

But a prominent indigene and Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu was absent at the rally.

It was learnt that the senator and the governor have become rivals over who gets a senatorial ticket.

Businesses, schools and the civil service were shut down yesterday to enable the residents attend the rally.

Chime said anyone who was not at the rally could not prove his or her support for Jonathan’s re-election, apparently referring to Ekweremadu.

Sambo said he had confirmed that Enugu State was 100 per cent for Jonathan’s re-election bid.

The vice-president noted that there would be no need for the President to campaign in the state.

He hailed Chime for transforming the state.

The governor explained that the rally was organised to support the Jonathan/Sambo 2015 return to Aso Rock Villa.

He said: “Our people have demonstrated their support and we are repeating what we said in 2011 that Mr. President should count Enugu out of the states for campaigns. This is because there will be no need for that. As you can see, the whole state has said ‘On Jonathan we stand’.”

Chime recalled that in 2011, no other presidential candidate campaigned in the state, adding that 2015 would not be different.

He said: “Any vote against Jonathan in 2015 must be a vote in error.”

Anambra State Governor Willy Obiano said his state supported Jonathan’s re-election.

He recalled that the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was the first party to endorse President Jonathan before the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did.

Dignitaries at the rally included the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim; the Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Prof. Rufai Ahmed Alkali; old Anambra State Governor Jim Nwobodo, former Senate President Ken Nnamani, Senator Ayogu Eze; former Information Minister Frank Nweke Jnr.; Minister of Power Prof. Chinedu Nebo and business mogul Chief Arthur Eze.

Also yesterday, a group, Enugu Rescue Group (ERG), criticised Chime for describing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members who were not at the Enugu rally as opposing Jonathan’s re-election.

The group was reacting to the statement by the governor who, while addressing the rally organised by the Enugu State Movement for Re-election of President Jonathan said that “whoever is not here could not be said to be supporting President Jonathan”.

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Comrade Martin Okenwa, ERG said Chime was notorious for his anti-Jonathan tendencies.

It described the Enugu rally as “a damage control from the backlash of the non-support and participation in the Transformation Ambassadors Nigeria (TAN) Southeast rally in Awka, the Anamabra State”.

The statement reads: “Governor Chime’s comment is an irony because, from the turbulent days of the struggle for the emergence of President Jonathan as the Acting President to the successful efforts spearheaded by TAN to have the PDP adopt Mr. President as its sole candidate, the Enugu State Government and the governor are renowned for their opposition and hide-and-seek games.

“Not only was Chime the only Southeast PDP governor who refused to collect the TAN registers to mobilise signatures in support of the President, it is also public knowledge that the governor took the State Executive Council and all the local government chairmen to a birthday party in Umuahia (Abia State capital) on the day of the rally attended by all the other PDP Southeast Governors.

“The Enugu rally was, therefore, a belated damage control and futile attempt to key himself into the Jonathan 2015 re-election having seen that Jonathan had carried the day with his adoption by the PDP as its sole presidential candidate.

“We see Chime’s comment as an attack on Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, the same man who moved the important motion and authored the Doctrine of Necessity, both of which snowballed into the Jonathan presidency at a time the governor was hobnobbing with anti-Jonathan forces.”