Lamido: Jonathan must work harder to get 2015

• As ex-Katsina council chairmen declare for Baraje
From ISMAILOMIPIDAN, Kaduna

In spite of another round of “Peace” meeting,  slated for tomorrow between the Baraje-led PDP and the Tukur-led PDP, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja,  there are strong indications that the crisis is far from being over.
For two consecutive days, different groups from  Katsina State, were in Dutse, the Jigawa State capital, to declare their support for what is now known in the North as a just-PDP, led by Abubakar Kawu Baraje.
The latest being Former Elected Local Government Chairmen Association (FELGOCAS), which left Dutse, on Friday morning.
The nine-man delegation, was led by its chairman, Alhaji Bala Saulawa, a grassroots politician, who was chairman for Katsina local government for nine years, since the inception of the current democratic dispensation, 14 years ago.
The visit, Saturday Sun observed, afforded Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, the opportunity to brief his guests on how the PDP crisis erupted, their effort at preventing it, including how they complained to President Jonathan, at the venue of the party’s recent national convention about the anomalies going on at the convention.
Lamido noted that the President’s lukewarm attitude towards their complaints, especially the shutting out of Adamawa and Rivers governors from the convention ground, including the substitution of elected members of House of Representatives, who the governor noted are statutory delegates, with unelected persons, as delegates, forced them out of the convention ground.
Speaking on their mission to Dutse, leader of the group, Saulawa, who had also served both the first civilian governor of the state and late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, as personal aide, said “all the injustices that you know, that are being perpetrated at the national level, by party officials, against loyal and faithful party members are being replicated in Katsina.
Responding, Lamido told the delegation that from their history and background, they are not people who could be bullied and be intimidated to submission, adding that they must brace up for the challenges ahead, adding that Jonathan would have to work harder, to earn Nigerians’ mandate in 2015, since it was handed to him in 2011, as part of the historical healing process.