Even as President Goodluck Jonathan is yet to make a formal declaration to seek a fresh term in 2015, groups pushing for his candidacy have now increased to 8,000. Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Professor  Rufai Alkali, made the revelation yesterday in Abuja when he  received the report of the special committee set up to restructure the Goodluck Support Group (GSG).
Alkali told members of the committee headed by General A.T Ibrahim (retd) that their report was confounding as it exceeded the Presidency’s earlier projection that the groups were not more than 3,000.
“I am pleased to inform you that one of the preliminary observations from the report of the team is that contrary to our earlier position that there were about 3, 000 groups rooting for Mr. President, we now have more than 7, 000 support groups nationwide, all calling on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to declare for the Presidential race.
“Indeed, initially we printed 5,000 forms that were distributed to the NGOs and other support groups but the forms soon ran out and we had to print additional 2,000.
“ As I am speaking to you now, we have at least another one thousand (1,000) groups demanding to be screened.
“With the report of the Screening and Evaluation Committee now submitted to us we are going to the next level, that is to say, we shall undertake content analysis of the reports with a view to properly positioning the various support groups for the challenges of the 2015 general election.
“We want to assure every support group irrespective of their size, from two-man group, to 20 million-man group that they are all important to us and we shall carry them along,” he said.
Alkali further admonished  the pro-Jonathan groups to commence the process of stepping down the structure and operations of their organisations to the zonal, state, local government areas up to the ward levels.
In his response, the Chairman of the committee, General Ibrahim said in the course of carrying out their assignment they went round the country and interacted with various interest groups.
He disclosed that  the interactive sessions were eye opener as it brought to the fore the huge number of Nigerians that were appreciative of the success recorded by the Jonathan administration.

2015: Groups backing Jonathan now  8,000 –Presidency