He said this when he met with 11 out of the 29 states governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at Aso Rock, Abuja.

The 11 present included Governors Danbaba Suntai of Taraba, Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, Sullivan Chime of Enugu, Liyel Imoke of Cross River, Gabriel Suswam of Benue, Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta and Ikedi Ohakim of Imo. Others were Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa and Akwe Doma of Nasarawa State.

Though details of the meeting were unclear last night, THISDAY learnt that some of the governors present believed the meeting should be held again next week as a result of the other governors absent for lesser hajj in Saudi Arabia.

“Many are currently fasting and Sallah is around the corner, so it was reasoned that a full house is better for the discussion,” a source told THISDAY.

No governor raised any issue on Jonathan’s disclosure, according to a source at the meeting which started at 4.20pm and ended about an hour later.

Concerns

The president was said to have reiterated his position that the 2011 general election would be free and fair. A governor was said to have raised concerns over the recent activities of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which has raided some states in recent times.

Jonathan reportedly said he was not the one who ordered the raids, maintaining that he knew nothing about the visits to states whose governors are believed to be opposed to his presidential ambition.

Another governor was said to have raised the possibility of a “fifth columnist” at work with the aim of painting Jonathan in bad light.

“It was recalled that when the government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was about to be overthrown in 1985, some fifth columnists in his government were working against him. They raided the house of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and did other things that painted Buhari in bad light just to achieve their aim. It is possible that this is the scene some people are trying to create to scuttle Jonathan’s ambition.”

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission plans to create a new registry for an estimated 70 million eligible voters in Africa's most populous nation slating the presidential election on January 22, sandwiched between a January 15 election for the National Assembly and a January 29 election for state offices.

The commission is yet to order computers it plans to use in November to register voters across Nigeria's sprawling cities and rural villages and to hire the estimated 50 000 poll workers it will need to run the election, leading some to wonder whether the coming polls will mirror the nation's ballot-box stuffing past.

"I think we can achieve a modicum - and I underline that word - a modicum of credibility," said Innocent Chukwuma, a Nigerian poll monitor now teaching at Harvard University's John F Kennedy School of Government.

"The time is too short to expect them to perform magic."

The country became a democracy through a presidential election in 1999, but its polls remained mired in vote-rigging, violence and political thuggery.

The People's Democratic Party, composed of the nation's elite, carries the political muscle necessary to ensure its candidate makes it into the presidential villa of Aso Rock.

International observers called the 2007 election of President Umaru Yar'Adua rigged, even though it represented the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in the nation's history.