Former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark on Tuesday reacted to reports that there was a pact between President Goodluck Jonathan and the northern governors that the President will stay in office for only four years, stating categorically that there was no agreement in the first place.
Clark in his open letter to the Niger State governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu said if there was an agreement, that Niger State and ten other states in the North did not keep to the terms of such agreement by ensuring that President Jonathan was triumphant in the northern states, as they voted for the Presidential Candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari.
The former minister also warned against the perceived scare of the President Jonathan by a section of the northern states, stating that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees equality of all Nigerians to seek elected offices, when and where necessary. According to Clark in the open letter to the Governor of Niger State on the perceived agreement between President Jonathan and the northern states governors that the President will stay in office for only four years, said, “As a rebuttal to your statement, I wish to repeat that there was no agreement between the governors of the 19 northern states and President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. You are a very well educated person, but it appears you do not understand the correct meaning of agreement.
For the records, according to the online edition of the Legal Dictionary, the word ‘agreement’ simply means: ‘A mutual understanding between two or more legally competent individuals or entities about their rights and duties regarding their past and future performances and a consideration that they must perform their own obligations in order to be bonded by the agreement. Thus agreement is the art of agreeing or coming to a mutual agreement.’
