Why speculations of Jonathan joining APC won’t end soon
Former President not contemplating joining ruling party- PDP
Jonathan didn’t hold any consultative meeting over 2023 —Aide
Don’t leave PDP, PGF D-G warns Jonathan
Ahead of the 2023 Presidential election, insinuations are rife that President Muhammadu Buhari is secretly wooing his predecessor in office, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Jonathan, it would be recalled, conceded defeat while official results of the 2015 Presidential elections were being announced, a development that fetched him national and global acclaim.
After a few months of throwing jibes at each other particularly on how the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, allegedly mismanaged the affairs of the nation while in power, President Buhari appears to have made up with Jonathan as the two have been regularly meeting at the Aso Rock Villa behind closed-doors.
To further fuel the rumours, Buhari would time and again shower praises on Jonathan, saying his decision to throw in the towel saved the nation’s democracy.
Although Jonathan is yet to address the speculations of his flirtation with the APC, Southern leaders have taken turns to counsel him against the move, saying doing so would not only tarnish his legacy but weaken the chances of a Southern President staying beyond 2027, in the event that Jonathan falls for the bait and win the poll.
In the past few years, Jonathan did nothing to dismiss these speculations as he avoided PDP events including the well-attended expanded national consensus meeting as well as the national elective convention in 2021.
Jonathan’s moves
Of late, Dr. Jonathan, according to reports, has been locked in moves to return to power. He was said have met with leaders of his South-South zone that are coordinating the quest. One of the meetings was held on December 27, 2021, at Aridolf Hotels and Spas in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
The meeting was held after Jonathan’s December 23, 2021 visit to President Buhari in Abuja.
Also, Jonathan’s political associate, Dikivie Ikiogha, was said to have formed a South-South 2023 Presidency group and had held consultative meetings with stakeholders. Coordinators of the group plotting for Jonathan to return to Aso Rock in 2023 reportedly met recently with Jonathan at his wife’s Aridolf Hotels.
Two North-west governors are said to be championing the move. Part of the plot is to reconcile Jonathan with South-South ministers considered unfavourably disposed to his joining the APC and flying the party’s 2023 presidential flag.
‘Buhari ‘s happy with Jonathan’
A presidency source said President Buhari is happy with the former president and may not oppose him if Jonathan chose to run in 2023.
‘’Former President Jonathan has been coming to Aso Rock regularly in recent times to brief President Buhari on his ECOWAS duties. President Buhari talks highly of Jonathan, praising him for the way he relinquished power in 2015 without bitterness. I will not be surprised if President Buhari supports Jonathan’s ambition,” the source said.
Jonathan didn’t hold any consultative meeting over 2023 – Aide
Speaking on the issues, Mr Ikechukwu Eze, a media aide to the former president, dismissed as false, reports of the meeting at Aridolf Hotels. He refused to confirm overtures to Jonathan to join APC to pursue 2023 presidential quest saying ‘’the rumour is there” nevertheless.
His words: ‘’There was 2023 consultation meeting at a hotel. People paid him homage during the Yuletide and the visits were at his home in Bayelsa. He did not receive people in a hotel.
“The rumour of overtures to join the APC is there but the truth is that he celebrated Christmas and New Year in Bayelsa and people were coming to greet him. It had nothing to do with 2023.”
Jonathan not contemplating joining ruling party — PDP
Spokesman of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, in a chat with Vanguard, dismissed speculations linking Jonathan to the APC.
While admitting that the former President had indeed been absent in PDP events in recent times, he insisted that proper apologies were sent given Jonathan’s international standing today.
“We don’t want to join issues with a sinking party which continues to fool Nigerians all the time. This time, they are flying a kite that Dr. Jonathan is likely to join them.
“All I can say is that the leadership of the Dr. Iyorchia Ayu-led National Working Committee is reaching out to members of the party including the former President to join hands with it to help rebuild and rescue Nigeria.
“APC is a special duty vehicle invented to crash Nigeria on a purposeless journey called next level. But we call on Nigerians to team up with the PDP to help win back the nation of our collective dream.
“I insist that we are not aware of our esteemed international states an, Dr. Jonathan entering into any form of talks with the APC in a bid to join them,” he said.
Efforts to get APC leaders’ position on the issue at press did not yield dividends. However, chieftains of the party said Jonathan would have a tough nut to crack in APC even though his ‘one term’ scenario will balance the power rotation issue and facilitate quick return of power to the North in 2027, if the move sailed through.
Don’t leave PDP, Lukman cautions Jonathan
However, Director General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, PGF, Salihu Moh’d Lukman, has cautioned Jonathan against leaving the PDP for the APC, saying such move would diminish his political stature as an elder statesman.
Lukman said: “Part of the reason high-profile membership recruitments by political parties in Nigeria attract a lot of debate, attention, and controversy, is that it hardly comes without any ambition to contest election by those joining the party.
“Partly because President Buhari will be completing his 2nd term and therefore ineligible to contest, the question of who will emerge as the Presidential candidate of the APC for 2023 is quite open.
“Two of the governors who recently joined the APC from the PDP are speculated to have done so because of ambition for 2023.
“And since the 2019 Bayelsa State Governorship election, when APC leaders met former President Jonathan to lobby support for the APC candidate, Mr. David Lyon, there have speculations that President Jonathan will also be joining the APC.
“However, it is important that the issue of high-profile membership recruitment by APC is clarified beyond the narrow expectations of electoral contest.
“Why should the objective of recruiting high-profile members be reduced to the issue of contesting elections? Assuming someone like former President Jonathan agrees to join the APC and he fails to emerge as the Presidential Candidate of the party for 2023 election, what will happen to him?
“As Nigerians, we must begin to take steps to protect our leaders. As APC members, we have campaigned against former President Jonathan in 2015. As President, former President Jonathan made every effort to block the emergence of APC in 2013.
“But those should not be the reference point. The reference point should be the historic decision of former President Jonathan to concede defeat in 2015 even before the final votes were counted.
“With that, former President Jonathan ranked himself as one of those who fought and defended Nigeria’s democracy. On no account therefore, should any political party be allowed to push former President Jonathan to diminish his stature, either as an aspirant or a candidate for any office.
“Doing so will mean that we want him to gamble away all his legendary achievements.
“It is sad enough that PDP leaders, being who they are, don’t recognise and respect former President Jonathan’s deserved political stature.
“No doubt, every speculation about the possibility of former President Jonathan joining the APC has to do with the reality of being unappreciated by PDP leadership.
“Negotiating to bring him into APC should not be based on aspiring for any office. It must be recognised that former President Jonathan, and indeed every former President, is beyond holding any office in the land. Bringing former presidents to that level will amount to diminishing their political stature.
“Already, President Buhari is doing excellently well by delegating some high-profile diplomatic responsibilities to former President Jonathan.
“One of the failures of PDP is the inability to create responsibilities that can match the statures of former Presidents. Inability to create responsibilities for former Presidents is perhaps what accounts for the overbearing restlessness of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
“With President Buhari scheduled to end his tenure in 2023, less than two years away, negotiations to recruit former President Jonathan into APC must be used to settle the question of the roles of former Presidents within the APC.
“APC must not allow the situation to emerge whereby party leaders and members only respect elected and appointed functionaries.
“Part of the lessons from the challenges created under the last National Working Committee led by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole had to do with the absence of Board of Trustees.
“Is it possible therefore to organise the APC Board of Trustees’ and get former Presidents to provide the needed moral leadership that can serve as a check to both party leaders and elected functionaries of the party?
“Having former Presidents discharging persuasive moral responsibilities as leaders of Board of Trustees would strengthen the capacity of party leaders and members to influence decisions of elected functionaries.
“Just imagine two former serving Presidents of the standings of President Buhari and former President Jonathan working in harmony towards a common political goal. It will take a rascally elected functionary at whatever level to ignore their recommendations.
“On the other hand, the big risk is when they are unable to work in harmony. That will tear the party apart and may potentially destroy the party.
“There is the need therefore to broaden consultations and agree on everything required to ensure that the framework of operations of the APC Board of Trustees guarantees that former serving Presidents can work in harmony.”
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