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.” 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 professional 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.
To be continued…
Mr. Gamawa is a doctoral candidate in Law at
Harvard University
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