Topic: Yar’Adua will lead beyond 2011’

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, on Sunday said there was nothing wrong with the health of President Umaru Yar‘Adua to necessitate northern elite shopping for his replacement.

Aondoakaa specifically said that the President was so fit that after his four year first term, he ”will still be around” to lead Nigeria.

The minister, who spoke with our correspondent on the telephone, said it was the figment of the imagination of those thinking that the President needed to be replaced by the Peoples Democratic Party if the party desired to win the 2011 presidential election.

Aondoakaa said, ”It is a figment of the imagination of those who are nursing such ideas. There is nothing like that in the offing.

“President Ya‘Adua is in good condition of health; he is in full control of his government. He will serve his four-year-term to the fullest, God willing. And by the grace of God, he will still continue to be around to take on the challenges of leading Nigerians to see peace and prosperity even after his first four years as the President.”

The presidency was said to have been rattled by reports that some political heavyweights in the North had commenced the process of shopping for an acceptable presidential candidate in view of perceived ill-health of the President.

Many politicians were also said to have been worried by the seeming poor performance of the President in his more than one year and a half in office.

Sources had said that some of the politicians involved in the search had piled pressure on former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar to reconcile with his former boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The calculation of the northern political elite, according to sources, was that if the two closed ranks, the former vice-president could return to the Peoples Democratic Party to contest the next presidential election on its platform.

The meeting between Obasanjo and his vice last week was said to have been part of the move to replace Yar‘Adua with another candidate in the build up to the 2011 presidential election.

Comments by Obasanjo during the parley in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, that former political office holders should come together to rescue the country from the present situation was said to have been a tacit indictment of Yar‘Adua‘s administration.

The emerging camps in the build-up to the 2011 presidential election was said to have been further reinforced on Saturday at the wedding of the President‘s daughter, Nafisat, in Katsina.

The decision by Obasanjo and the former vice-president to ride in the same vehicle was believed to have sent another strong statement to Yar‘Adua that the two were up to some games.

In addition, the fact that former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, reportedly rode in the same car with Yar‘Adua was interpreted to mean an emerging alliance between the President and the former military president.

There are insinuations that both Yar‘Adua and former President Olusegun Obasanjo had fallen out with each other over the President‘s handling of certain issues of national interest.

Obasanjo was said to have been bothered by the fact that those who criticised his choice of Yar‘Adua in 2007 are being proved right with the alleged poor performance of his successor.

Already, Abubakar‘s parley with Obasanjo is said to be creating disquiet within the Action Congress on the platform of which the former vice-president contested in 2007.

Last Thursday National Executive Committee meeting of the party had provided members with the opportunity to condemn the visit especially because Abubakar did not take the party into confidence

Aondoakaa specifically said that the President was so fit that after his four year first term, he ”will still be around” to lead Nigeria. - Time Will Tell!