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ELECTIONS:PDP Governors Meet In PH To Review Takeover Bid

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Ikiogha said the group was still consulting, making contacts with people and that at the appropriate time they would come out with their position on who will contest from South-south.  He said the rotation between the North and South was not between the Southwest and the North. He said Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has utilized the slot of the Southwest and that the region should not be seeking to contest next year’s presidential election. Besides, he said Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would be completing another eight years on the saddle by May next year when the present administration bows out.

He said: “The presidency is not meant for them (Southwest) alone, and for fairness and equity, they should look for somebody in the Southeast or the South-south to support. The Southwest should not come out and say they want to contest. That is not justice. Every zone has people that can rule this country?

“I belong to a political party and if it makes a mistake on this, we will resist it. We have a group too, the South-south Presidency 2023, which is not affiliated with any political party. We are a mixture of different political parties. What we are fighting for is the truth. We have warned long ago that the two major political parties should not make the mistake of foisting the chairmanship position on anybody from the Southouth or South as a whole. Similarly, no one from the South should accept the position of vice president; otherwise, we would work against that party. The PDP nearly made that mistake and I think it has retraced its step.”

A source close to Jonathan said there are no indications that ex-President Jonathan is interested in contesting the next presidential election. The source, who craved anonymity, however, said that some powerful persons across the country have been lobbying him to contest.

He said if Jonathan had wished to contest, it would not be a hidden thing. He, therefore, urged people to be more circumspect in their judgment. The source said, for now, Jonathan’s primary focus was on his foundation and his international mediation engagements.

The source said: “Jonathan has been receiving visitors, New Year messages, courtesy calls in-house and across the board. It was in line with that that some elders, most of them, Bayelsa people met him in his residence to discuss some issues. It was not basically on the 2023 election.

“Some leaders came to pay New Year homage to him, which is not strange during this period as a former president. Notable leaders across the South-south have been paying homage to him at his residence and it is not really tied to 2023. Of course, people have been lobbying him to contest the 2023 election, but for now, it is unclear what his stand is at the moment.

“On the possibility of defecting to the APC as being speculated, that is difficult. I can’t read his mind but I wouldn’t agree to that. The assumption is hard to believe. In the history of Nigeria, we have not seen a former president or sitting president defecting from his party to another. Considering his past records and having been a beneficiary of the PDP for 16 years, I don’t think that will happen. But, then, I am not a seer and I can’t see through his mind and what lies within it.

“Of a truth, some people have been mounting pressure to see whether he will hit the turf. Some are by this action trying to negotiate for themselves. There is no deep commitment that he wants to run for 2023. This is because he is a big fish within the political turf; there is always the tendency for people to say he is contesting. In 2019, his name was always occurring that he wanted to run but he never ran.”

A pastor of an Abuja-based church, The Resurrected Assembly (GROM), Prize F. Aluko, has reportedly predicted that Jonathan would return as president in 2023. The pastor said in his recent prophetic declaration revealed that Jonathan left office in 2015 because God had training for him on some missions to achieve in the future.

He added that now that the former president has been prepared by God, it was time to go for what the Almighty had in mind for him, which is the presidency.

Credit:The Nations

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