Nigeria's ruling party splinters, in threat to Jonathan
ABUJA | Sat Aug 31, 2013 6:55pm EDT
(Reuters) - Seven Nigerian ruling party governors and a former presidential
candidate formed a splinter group opposed to President Goodluck Jonathan on
Saturday, in the most explicit internal threat yet to his assumed bid to run
for another term in office.
Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party has been in power since shortly
after the end of military rule in 1998, but it is increasingly riven by
internal squabbles, centered around Jonathan's alleged intention to run
again in 2015.
"We address you today as leaders of the PDP, who are worried by the
increasing repression, restrictions of freedom of association, arbitrary
suspension of members," read the statement by seven governors and former
vice president Atiku Abubakar.
"We consider it a sacred responsibility to save the PDP from the antics of a
few desperadoes who ... are bent on hijacking the party for selfish ends,"
it added.
Many northerners say Jonathan's running again would violate an unwritten
rule within the PDP that power should rotate between the largely Muslim
north and mostly Christian south every two terms.
But the president has also made powerful enemies elsewhere, including the
governor of Rivers state Rotimi Amaechi, who is from Jonathan's own oil
producing Niger Delta region.
Amaechi was on the list of governors joining the "new" PDP, along with six
other governors from northern states.
The open rebellion against Jonathan in his party could lead to more
instability as the poll approaches. Violence, always high at election time,
may worsen, as rivals use unemployed youth militia to settle scores.
It could also mean that Jonathan's loyalists will be forced to use state
funds to pay off rivals, draining the treasury in a pattern that often sees
the country's savings depleted and debt soar around election time.
In Nigeria's federal system, governors are some of the most powerful
officials in the country. Some control budgets bigger than many African
countries, and their votes carry a great deal of weight in selecting
presidential candidates.
Amaechi and Jonathan have been embroiled in a spat in the past few months,
which worsened when Amaechi was elected head of the National Governors'
Forum grouping Nigeria's 36 states.
Nineteen governors voted for Amaechi against the 16 who voted for Jonathan's
preferred choice.
(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Mohammad
Zargham)
(Reuters) - Twenty-four vigilantes in northeast Nigeria were killed in an
ambush during a botched attempt to arrest members of Islamist sect Boko
Haram, one a member of their group and a security source said on Saturday.
"They were ambushed even before they got to the Boko Haram camps," one of
the youth vigilantes Masta Moh'd, who was not present during the attack on
Friday in the town of Monguno, but had heard from several of the survivors,
told Reuters.
He said more than 100 of the vigilantes had participated in the raid, which
turned sour when the insurgents, seen as the main security threat to
Africa's top energy producer, ambushed them as they entered the town's
outskirts.
A member of the government's mixed military and police Joint Task Force, who
declined to be named, confirmed the death toll from the incident as 24.
A concerted military crackdown on Boko Haram ordered by President Goodluck
Jonathan in mid-May had appeared to have weakened the sect, but they have
repeatedly proved masters at going into hiding then coming back just as
deadly as before.
The use of civilian militia - often armed with no more than clubs and knives
- as a weapon against the Islamists has led to the arrest of hundreds of
them, the military says.
That civilian backlash against Boko Haram has handed the military its
greatest advantage over the insurgency in the four years it has been active.
It has also made the vigilantes and their families prime targets for the
Islamists.
Scores have been killed in revenge attacks.
The military said this month that Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau may
have died in late July of wounds inflicted during a fire fight with them,
although they gave no evidence.
If he is dead, it appears not to have quelled the violence, which is on the
rise since the start of the month.
(Reporting by Lanre Ola; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Alison Williams)
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Received on Sun Sep 01 2013 - 15:40:15 EDT