A Rattled Jonathan In Lagos to Pick Up “NGO” Endorsement.

Goodluck Jonathan

Reeling from Saturday’s stormy National Assembly elections in which his party suffered significant setbacks, Goodluck Jonathan flew quietly into Lagos today to pick up endorsement from a few obscure members of the civil society. The ceremony took place at Eko Hotels in Lagos.

The group that endorsed Mr. Jonathan is led by Ibuchukwu Ejike, the executive director of a splinter group of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), and Francis Abayomi, the convener of a self-styled South- West Think-Thank on Democratic Governance (Yoruba Ronu), who works in the non-governmental sector.

Our sources noted that, apart from Mr. Ejike and Mr. Abayomi, no other known members of the civil society community were present. However, a source told us that aides of Mr. Jonathan shipped in other civil society people from out of Lagos to participate in what a civil society group director claimed was a "charade".


Mr. Jonathan is facing a serious challenge in the upcoming presidential elections that is less than 6 days away. Many candidates of his People’s Democratic Party were trounced in various constituencies around Nigeria at Saturday's parliamentary elections.

Our source disclosed that today’s parley with the “civil society” ended at 5:00 p.m. The source revealed that each participant at the event was offered N100, 000 ($700) in “transportation fare,” a custom of the Jonathan campaign.