Activities heralding the re-election campaign of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua will effectively take off in Abuja today, THISDAY can report.
A meeting will be convened to inaugurate national and state coordinators as well as appoint national facilitators of the campaign group, the newspaper was told.
The meeting is under the direct supervision of the Presidency which has picked the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Political Matters, Senator Polycarp Nwite, as the anchor.
Presidency sources informed THISDAY that the campaign team would be named “Yar’Adua for New Nigeria” and would hold the meeting at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, with Nwite superintending. The time of the meeting is 11am.
The invitation to the meeting was signed by one Dr. Idris Aminu who is already serving as secretary of the committee and is on the staff of the Presidency.
Other part anchors of the meeting are one Senator Mahdi, who is serving as Chairman Board of Trustees, and Farouk Abdulazeez, former Chairman of the defunct Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) – the political group of the president’s late brother, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua.
When THISDAY contacted Nwite yesterday, he confirmed that a meeting would take place today to inaugurate the committee for the “Yar’Adua for New Nigeria” campaign.
But he said he was only facilitating the fruition of a group of Nigerians to formulate the President’s vision for a new Nigeria.
According to him, “what we are holding is a meeting of Nigerians who believe in the continuity of the programmes and policies of President Yar’Adua to take Nigeria to a new level.”
He further said the movement would be officially launched at a latter date, but explained that what today’s meeting is all about is to announce the names of state coordinators and national leaders.
It was gathered that the office of the senior special adviser to the president on political matters has been gradually engaged in organising meetings for the President’s second term bid.
Ironically, Yar’Adua had, during the Special Convention of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), directed that all campaigns for 2011 be suspended as they were a distraction to his administration.
Already, the Deputy National Chairman of PDP, Dr. Harilu Mohammed Bello, has said that the party would support the second term aspiration of Yar’Adua as the seven-point agenda of his administration is programmed to be completed within eight years.
According to the deputy national chairman earlier in the year, “President Yar’Adua is entitled to four years in office. That [will] end by 2011 and by the grace of God, he will seek a second term in office to make it eight years, because his seven-point agenda is designed to be implemented within a time frame of eight years.
“He is entitled to second term in office and by the grace of God, there is nothing on ground to stop him. The PDP structure is on ground for his second term in office. There is nothing to indicate that he will not contest for the second term in office when the time comes.”
Bello expressed the support of the party for the second term of President Yar’Adua, declaring: “We shall offer him a 100 per cent support when the time comes. I can assure you that the PDP structures will afford him the second term when the time comes.”
Ahead of the 2011 general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said prepareations for the smooth conduct throughout the country are ongoing.
Disclosing this when the members of the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters visited her office, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Imo State, Mrs. Maria Owi, said INEC, in preparation for smooth conduct of 2011 elections had started making non-sensitive materials available to states.

Is it not too early to start that now?