2015: Jonathan undecided – Tukur

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has urged Nigerians to ignore reports that President Goodluck Jonathan plans to contest the 2015 presidential election.
“Nigerians should be patient over the issue of who will be the PDP presidential flagbearer in 2015 because you have to get to the bridge before you attempt to cross the river,” Tukur told reporters yesterday at his Mayo-Kalare country home in Jada Local Government area of Adamawa state.
Tukur’s declaration runs contrary to the recent announcement made by the PDP Woman’s Leader, Amb. Kema Chikwe, that the President would run for the Presidency in 2015.
Chikwe had during the launching of an almanac on PDP women in power, stated that Jonathan would return as the President on the platform of the party in 2015. While commenting on the need to ensure enhanced women participation in politics, Chikwe had said: “We are even more confident that when President Goodluck Jonathan returns in 2015, women would be talking about 50% and no longer 35%. As we give him unequivocal, undiluted, unreserved and unlimited support and as we march to 2015, PDP women will reach the promised land.”
Shortly afterwards, Tukur himself had declared that nothing stops Jonathan from contesting the 2015 presidency on the platform of the party.
That declaration has generated a lot of misgivings in the polity culminating in the disclosure made by the Chairman, Northern States Governor Forum and Niger state governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, that Jonathan actually signed a single term pact with the PDP governors before he could get their support to be nominated as the party’s flagbearer for the 2011 Presidential election.
Aliyu’s disclosure, though yet to be personally denied or confirmed by the President, has generated a lot of political furor, threatening to tear the party apart.
Some governors, who believe that power must shift to the northern part of the country, have reportedly begun to make moves to actualize their ambitions elsewhere should the PDP go ahead to impose the President as the party’s presidential flagbearer in 2015.
But fielding questions from journalists at his country home of Mayo-Kalare after paying a condolence visit to Ganye over last Friday’s attack by some unidentified gunmen which left no fewer than 26 people dead, Tukur said it was too early to talk about the 2015 presidential flagbearer of the party. He  added that speculations about President Goodluck Jonathan’s automatic ticket was uncalled for.
“I don’t know why people like controversies and creating unnecessary tension within the polity. Have you ever crossed the river without reaching the bridge? Let us reach the bridge before we cross them. What we are concerned with for now is to build a strong party”, he admonished.
The PDP Chairman also debunked the insinuation in some quarters that he is running a one man show in the affairs of the party stressing that, he has been carrying members of the National Working Committee and other stakeholders along in the PDP’s affairs as demonstrated in his recent reconciliation tour to various zones in the country.
He called on Nigerians especially the media to help in uniting the nation and stop looking at every national issue from political or religious perspectives.
On the issue of the Lamido’s committee constituted by the presidency to look into the internal crisis rocking the Adamawa state chapter of the PDP, Tukur who has since endorsed the Chief Joel Madaki led faction, denied knowledge or reception of any report from the committee headed by the Jigawa state governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido as widely speculated.