In this piece, OLALEKAN ADETAYO and eniola akinkuotu write on the influential personalities that will be largely affected by President Goodluck Jonathan’s exit
That President Goodluck Jonathan lost the March 28 presidential election is no longer news. Although he has been in the saddle for about six years, he has not been leading the country alone. By virtue of being very close to the President, there are men and women who have been wielding huge influence on his Presidency.
It is therefore no gainsaying that Jonathan did not lose this election alone. These people calling the shots from their various comfort zones are also losers in their own right. Who are these President’s men and women?
Mrs. Patience Jonathan
Mrs. Patience Jonathan is the wife of the President. Like wives of Presidents before her, she runs the Office of the First Lady with glamour despite the fact that the office is not recognised in the nation’s constitution. So powerful is the woman who prefers to be called Mama Peace that she was also elected the President of the African First Ladies Mission, a body of wives of Presidents across the continent. She also founded a non-governmental organisation, Women for Change, which has the mandate of empowering women nationwide.
The influence she wields cannot be measured. Her hands seem to be on everything. She is believed to be the unseen hand behind the travail of a former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, which denied him a second term ticket. The former governor was made uncomfortable in the Peoples Democratic Party until he left to join the All Progressives congress.
They replaced Sylva with Governor Seriake Dickson. The current governor tried hard to please the President’s wife to the extent that she was made a Permanent Secretary in the state. The honeymoon, however, did not last. Dickson also ran into troubled water with the woman who is said to have pencilled down the Special Assistant to the President on Domestic Matters, Dr. Wariponmowei Dudafa, as the next governor. She has since resigned her appointment from the state job.
It is also a known fact the problem between the President and Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State which forced the governor out of the PDP started with a disagreement he had with Mrs. Jonathan over the demolition of some houses in Okrika, the ancestral home of the President’s wife.
To get something in this government, you must be in the good books of Mrs. Jonathan. That is why government officials and their spouses bow and tremble before her.
Senator Pius Anyim
Okonjo-Iweala, Anyim
Anyim is the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. By virtue of his position, he is a big man (not about his stature) in the cabinet. He coordinates the activities of ministers.
Because of his closeness to the President, the former President of the Senate wields huge influence. He was accused of providing cover for the former Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah, when she was facing fire over the two bulletproof BMW cars bought for her. To avoid journalists, Oduah was on many occasions driven out of the Presidential Villa after weekly Federal Executive Council meetings in Anyim’s official car.
He is also alleged to have a hand in the crisis rocking the state chapter of the PDP in his home state, Ebonyi. The state governor, Martin Elechi, had claimed that Anyim was the brain behind the impeachment process initiated against him by some members of the state House of Assembly.
His camp was accused of foisting the state Deputy Governor, Dave Umahi, on the people as the PDP governorship candidate in the April 11 governorship election at a time when Elechi was rooting for a former Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu. The situation has forced many PDP stakeholders in the state to be working for the Labour Party.
Diezani Alison-Madueke
Alison-Madueke is the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
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