PDP adopted Jonathan to strengthen democracy - Presidency

The Presidency said on Wednesday that the consensus arrangement by the Peoples Democratic Party, which led to the adoption of President Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s sole candidate for the 2015 Presidential election is meant to strengthen democracy.



It also added that the adoption has also not closed the contest for the 2015 Presidential election in the country.

Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Prof. Ahmed Alkali who stated this in Abuja, added that President Jonathan was disposed to having a keen contest with candidates presented by other political parties next year.

The President, he said, was already preparing for the contest.

Alkali said he was reacting to the numerous criticisms that had trailed the adoption of the President by the ruling party, an action that was said to have shut out other interested aspirants from the race.

It will be recalled that arms of the party like the National Caucus, Board of Trustees, Governors Forum and the Independent National Electoral Commission, have adopted the president.

However, a member of the party, who is the son of Nigeria’s First Republic Prime Minister, Dr. Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa-Balewa, has said he will contest the 2015 presidential election on the platform of the party.

Tafawa-Balewa condemned plot by the leadership of the party to demoralize other presidential aspirants by adopting Jonathan as the sole presidential candidate of the party.

According to the Presidential Adviser, what the PDP did was to affirm its maturity in political game based on its rich experience of being in power for the past 16 years and had thus succeeded in obviating internal wrangling that usually trail internal electioneering among members.

He said the option of consensus has not been strange in the politics of Nigeria.

According to him, all political parties at critical times deploy the option, most especially when the need arises for them to stay afloat.

He said, “We should not forget that PDP having been in power since 1999 remains the most experienced, dependable, consistent and strongest with spread in all nooks and crannies of the country.

“If it deploys such experience in putting its house in order so as to excel in the coming general election, the rest of Nigeria should rather applaud its approach and tactics in politics. Moreover, there has not been any complaint in any quarter from within on the good option the PDP had taken.”

Alkali said the PDP resolved to encourage President Jonathan to contest the 2015 presidential election being a good product with sterling performances to attest for his leadership in the past three and half years he has been in the saddle.

According to him, Nigeria should begin to move away from adversarial politics by which he said the country has been wasting good leaders over the years for no just reasons.

He said if efforts by PDP to present Jonathan for the 2015 poll should be applauded, the need to show-case him as a performing leader and the need to entrench continuity in the polity as done in other climes should come into reckoning.