Nigeria – Saturday, 17 April 2021: Former Governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, has explained why former President Goodluck Jonathan did not win his second term bid in the 2015 general election.

Aliyu, in a statement he signed and titled, ‘Why We Opposed Jonathan’s Second Term Bid –Babangida Aliyu,’ revealed that Northern governors of the Peoples Democratic Party worked against the re-election of Jonathan because he (Jonathan) reneged on an agreement not to seek a second term.

In the 2015 election, Goodluck Jonathan lost to President Muhammadu Buhari , the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

He explained that “All the governors in the North under the PDP supported the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to complete the remaining years of Yar’Adua’s tenure and to contest the next presidential election as a sole candidate of our great party.

“However, midway, President Goodluck Jonathan insisted to run for the office in 2015 against the grain of our earlier agreement.

“Since this was against the grain of our earlier agreement in the party, and which we, the governors in the North felt the North would have been short-changed if Jonathan had succeeded, we rose stoutly to insist on the agreement we all had.

 “On that premise, we opposed Jonathan. But all along, Goodluck Jonathan had enjoyed every support from the governors in the north and the entire region.”

Aliyu, who was a former chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum and a former leader of a PDP faction, said the North stood disadvantaged by Yar’Adua’s death and the insistence that Jonathan should run for the office of president in 2015.

He further stated that “We acted in good spirit and argued our points based on principle and on the subsisting agreement we had with Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. That agreement was written and accepted by all.

“We didn’t oppose Jonathan but we were opposed to his insistence on a second term in office because the North would have lost out completely.

“It is, therefore, wrong for anyone to erroneously say that I, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, had opposed Goodluck Jonathan.”