Abuja — President Goodluck Jonathan and his campaign strategists may have decided to concede to the one-term option being proposed by key Northern leaders who have been holding talks with him over the way out of the zoning crisis.

A close associate of the President told THISDAY that he is not averse to suggestion that he should end his tenure in 2015 and that President Jonathan in fact believes public officers should do just one term in office.

"The President believes that public officers can make an impact in one term. And that if it is one term, it saves the President the rigours of primaries and entering into all kinds of deals for re-election," the associate said.

THISDAY had last week exclusively reported that Northern leaders, including governors sympathetic to Jonathan, had proposed the option of one term and a return of power to the North in 2015 to reduce the tension in the polity and create a "peaceful atmosphere" before the 2011 elections.

THISDAY reported that General TY Danjuma and the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar, were also involved in this move which has been considered as a "political solution" to the controversy.

The major obstacle to Jonathan's outright endorsement by the North, according to THISDAY sources, is the fear that he may seek a second term in 2015, thereby keeping the region out of presidential power for nine years.

Information available to THISDAY had indicated that the power brokers have agreed in principle to support Jonathan's aspiration on the condition that he would in turn commit "in writing" to support a Northern candidate to succeed him in 2015.

"The naked truth is that we cannot stop President Jonathan from running," a traditional ruler told the newspaper last week. "No matter the argument we want to make, it will be difficult to ask a sitting president to vacate office when it is within his constitutional right to run. We also do not want to damage our relationship with the South-south and that relationship is as old as Nigeria."

The royal father said, however, that the president should also consider the political dilemma the North has now found itself as it would be "unfair" to keep power in the South for 17 out of 20 years if Jonathan seeks re-election in 2015.
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The discussion over what concession Jonathan would have to make to the North is becoming intensified as some of his supporters believe that the one -term option is more feasible than the consensus candidacy arrangement put in place by the Adamu Ciroma-led Northern Lea-ders Consultative Forum as a way of wresting power from the incumbent president.

"The more, a realistic option is what we are pursuing now. In any case when we begin real campaign for the President in the North, we need to be able to tell our people what we are able to get from the president for the North in exchange for our support for him," a state governor told THISDAY yesterday.

President Jonathan is set to slug it out with former vice president Abubakar Atiku in the PDP presidential primaries which will hold on January 15, 2011 in Abuja.

Source:THISDAY NEWS