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Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has said that the PDP is currently considering the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, and a former Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, for the PDP’s 2027 presidential ticket.
Mr Mohammed, the chairperson of the PDP Governors Forum, spoke on Thursday night when he appeared as a guest on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
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The governor’s comment came a few days after the PDP zoned its presidential ticket to Southern Nigeria.
Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra, was a presidential aspirant of the PDP in 2022. But later resigned from the PDP a few days before the party’s presidential primary, saying there were practices in the party that were inconsistent with his “belief and persona.”
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He defected to the LP, where he later emerged as the party’s 2023 presidential candidate.
Mr Jonathan served as Nigerian president under the PDP platform from 2010 to 2015, when he was defeated by the then-APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.
Not just Obi, Jonathan
The Bauchi governor said apart from Messrs Obi and Jonathan, the PDP governors were still holding conversations with “celebrated politicians” across party lines.
He maintained that the PDP was open to receiving “heavyweights” who could add value to the party’s quest to wrestle power from the APC.
Seun Okinbaloye, the Channel’s anchor, asked Mr Mohammed if the PDP governors were in talks with Mr Jonathan.
“Yes, we are,” he responded.
When asked to confirm that a similar conversation was ongoing with Mr Obi, he said: “Have you not seen him in boats several times? Have you not seen him with me? He’s my brother, my friend. And of course, he’s one of the most celebrated politicians too.
“Within the coalition or outside the coalition, we are not sleeping – only that we don’t make noise.”
Mr Mohammed said he promised to step down his own presidential ambition if Mr Jonathan decided to run under the PDP.
“I was the first person to say that if he runs, I will not run. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I said we should just go and sleep,” he said.
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The Bauchi governor said that talks were ongoing with other politicians, including those who left the PDP in the past, who might be willing to return or align with the party.
He said, for instance, that a former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, could still return to the PDP despite joining the coalition group which has ADC as its platform for the general election.
“Amaechi is free to come back if he wants to. I have spoken to so many people, not just him or Obi. These are only the key people I mentioned,” he stated.
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