The Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade and 60 traditional rulers, who converged on his palace yesterday, pledged their support for President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term.

Oba Sijuwade said “President Jonathan is fighting in a race. He must not fail. By the grace of God, you will win the race.”

The monarch, thereafter, directed all the traditional rulers to surround Jonathan and point their staffs to him and pray for his success during the forthcoming March 28 presidential election.

President Jonathan, in return, also pledged 100 per cent implementation of the national confab recommendations, if re-elected, to bring about sustainable development of all regions in the country.

He said with the commitment to implement the report of the national conference, a majority of the challenges confronting Nigeria as a nation would be tackled, thus creating enabling and conducive atmosphere to promote overall growth in the polity and address all peculiar problems inhibiting the greatness of the nation.

Jonathan, who arrived the palace of the Ooni of Ife around 2:22 pm, was received by Oba Sijuwade and other traditional rulers from Osun State.

According to him, “one thing that we want to promise is something that can change the socio-economic sector. This is the implementation of the national conference recommendations, which is key to moving Nigeria forward. When some people were talking of change, we are committed to moving the nation to greater heights.

“The opposition boycotted the national confab. They cannot implement the recommendations of confab they did not support. Sustainable changes can only be achieved with the implementation of the national conference report. The PDP is the only party that advocated the full implementation of that report”, Jonathan stated.

While commenting on the marginalisation of the South-West in the political equation of the country, he said “the marginalisation is not my own making. In my second term, it won’t come up at all. I promise that the South-West would not be short changed this time around. They would be appointed into key positions.

Jonathan, who recalled that about 5,000 kilometres of federal government roads were motorable when his administration took over maintained that “by now, we have already reconstructed additional 20, 000 kilometres of motorable roads”.

He contended that the intervention of his administration in the agricultural sector had staved off food crisis, which would have ravaged the country during the 2012 flood, adding that “before we took over, Nigeria was expending N3.3 trillion on food importation. But now, our food importation expenses stands at N600 billion”.

•Adapted from a Sunday Tribune report. Photo shows Jonathan.

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