2015: Only God can stop Jonathan says Gov Aliyu

Chairman of Northern States Governors' Forum and Niger State Governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has said that if it was the will of God that President Goodluck Jonathan would contest and win the 2015 presidential election, no mortal being can stop him just like he could not be stopped in 2011.

He debunked claims that the activities of the Boko Haram sect were aimed at frustrating President Jonathan's alleged move to seek for a second term in office in 2015.

The governor argued that the activities of the sect preceded even the Vice Presidency of Dr. Jonathan.

Governor Aliyu made the remarks in Minna, the state capital yesterday when he received the Minister of State for Works and the Supervising Minister for National Planning, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, at the Government House.

He said: “Boko Haram did not start with the Presidency of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and cannot stop him from contesting the 2015 presidential election.”

The governor told his guests that the activities of the group started in the 1990s in Yobe State and since then had been escalating because of “lack of political will to stop the sect from wreaking havocs on Nigerians.”

He remarked that the activities of Boko Haram were different from those of the Niger Delta militants, stressing that it was time all Nigerians put sentiments aside and faced the issue of terminating the activities of the sect so that peace could return to the country.

He described the Boko Haram sect as a “social malaise” that had hit the north bringing with it “intense competition between those Nigerians that had western education and those that read Islamic education,” adding that it was time  the nation looked at its social fabrics and removed anything that tends to derail the progressive march of the country.

Governor Aliyu maintained that the Presidency should look into the letters of agreement between it and those that have offered to assist the country to check the activities of the sect so that they would not stay more than necessary in the country.

Aliyu also castigated those that have been criticising the rebasing of the country's economy, saying the rebasing of the country's Gross Domestic Product “is not a gimmick by government” but an accurate statistical data of the development of the national economy.

Earlier, Ambassador Yuguda had said that after the rebasing of the nation's economy, the ministry had begun the rebasing of the economies of the 36 states of the federation and Abuja.