President Goodluck Jonathan is not leav-ing any stone unturned in clearing the ways for his veiled aspiration to be president and has thus commenced moves aimed at pacifying the North before thinking of making a formal declaration.

Saturday Tribune can reveal that the Presidency was rattled by the position of the North on zoning, particularly the resolve by northern state governors not to attack his interest in contesting the 2010 presidential election, just as the governors expressed firm resolution in zoning.

Indication that Jonathan was ruffled by the position of the North on zoning emerged on Thursday night when former President Olusegun Obasanjo and presidential hopeful, General Ibrahim Babangida, held a closed-door session in Abuja which lasted several hours.

Obasanjo had left his Ota farm early on Thursday to catch the meeting, knowing that Babangida was equally eager to have talks with him on the political developments in Nigeria in respect of build-ups to 2011, Saturday Tribune learnt.

It was the meeting that kept Babangida away from Ibadan, Oyo State, where his supporters had put together a rally meant to be used to send signals about his seriousness in contesting the 2011 presidential election which he has been telling his supporters he would not back out from, no matter the intimidation.

However, Saturday Tribune gathered that it was rather Jonathan who set the tone for the meeting between Obasanjo and Babangida with an idea that Obasanjo should wade into the issue of zoning which has started stifling preparations by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the next general elections.

Investigations revealed, however, that Babangida looked forward to the meeting with the hope that Obasanjo was having a change of heart about his own aspiration to be president, only to get to the venue of the meeting, held at the residence of a PDP member in Wuse II Abuja, to be confronted with the issue of zoning and the aspect that concerns the interest of President Jonathan.

Insiders at the meeting disclosed to Saturday Tribune exclusively that Obasanjo as usual entreated IBB to tread cautiously about his aspiration to be president, suggesting to him that he should assist Jonathan in convincing the North on the necessity to drop its stand on zoning, even if it would present candidates for the elections.

A distraught Babangida, as revealed was said to be smart enough not to give assurances, just as he was brief in his remarks, as he was said to have told his former boss that the task of convincing the North to drop its commitment to zoning would be “herculean.”

Further investigations revealed that much as messages of goodwill continued to trail speculations about Jonathan’s interest in contesting the next presidential election, mostly from the Middle-Belt and South-South, he has not really been at peace against the uncertainty about an action that the North may take to confront him in the heat of 2011 elections.

Jonathan’s think-tanks, it was learnt, have been attempting to decode the attitude of the North to the 2011 presidential election to no avail, and have hence been suggesting to him that his declaration for presidency should be put on hold until he gets concrete assurances from very key figures in the North.

The contention of Jonathan’s think-tank was that much as the Middle-Belt appreciates Jonathan and desires to work in his interest to become president, he was nonetheless, conscious of the religious implication of embracing the Middle Belt wholeheartedly at the expense of the North.

A Presidency source told Saturday Tribune that Jonathan prefers to have more of Muslim northern leaders on his side in addition to the support from the likes of Chief Solomon Lar, Professor Jerry Gana, Chief Barnabas Gemade and others on behalf of Middle Belt.

Meanwhile, shortly had the secret meeting between Obasanjo and Babangida leaked than some of Babangida’s supporters convened a meeting the following day in Abuja and resolved to entreat him never to relinquish his desire to contest in the next election as he had promised.

It is not certain yet whether IBB and his supporters had met, but Saturday Tribune was told that his men were of the view that they would not be part of any last minute change of plan by their principal,  since many of them are still nursing grievances on Babangida’s withdrawal from the race in 2007.

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