A support group of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the APC North-South Patriotic Coalition (ANSPAC), has warned against imposing former President Goodluck Jonathan as the consensus candidate at the May 30 presidential primary.
The group, during a protest march to the party secretariat in Abuja on Thursday, warned that the party would be heading for defeat if the former Bayelsa Governor emerges the party’s flag bearer for 2023.
Armed with anti-Jonathan’s placards, the group stormed the party secretariat, temporarily affecting human and vehicular movements in and around the premises.
In a letter to the APC national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, read to newsmen during the protest, the leader of the group, Alhaji Toyin Rahim, said the rumour has been around for some time that Jonathan was being wooed by some power players within the APC to join the party and fly its presidential ticket.
Rahim described Jonathan’s project as dead on arrival as he argued that the brand cannot help the party to retain power.
“One of the most telling negative implications of such an action is that the APC does not have anyone of electoral value who can win the election for us except we smuggle in a former president we defeated seven years ago for his glaring incompetence as president.
“In APC today there are presidential aspirants with credible pedigrees and humongous electoral value and capacity. It is not only unnecessary to smuggle Jonathan into our great party, but it is also self-indicting and means that our party’s performance in office has been worse than an administration that Nigerians thoroughly rejected and voted APC in 2015.
“It will also be an indictment against His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari by making Nigerians believe that we lied to them when we said Jonathan performed woefully and that our dear President Muhammadu Buhari would do better. Are we now saying we lied to Nigerians and that we have now discovered that Jonathan was much better and that he should return to continue his good works that nobody can see?”
The group demanded the Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC) to make a categorical statement on the party’s position over the embarrassing development.
“Those who are masterminding this project do not have the interest of the party at heart and certainly do not love Nigeria.
“What sense is in anyone bringing back someone we announced to the whole world that he was a failure and rejected by the overwhelming numbers of Nigerians and then we go back to start romancing him and make him our presidential flag bearer? That’s a self-inflicted disaster.
“We demand an immediate categorical statement from the party’s leadership that such project to import and impose former president Goodluck Jonathan as APC’s presidential candidate is not being contemplated. This demand represents the overwhelming majority of opinions in the party across the board nationwide.”
