2023 Presidency: PDP clears way for Jonathan to contest

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says former President, Goodluck Jonathan and every other interested party member can contest for the position of president in 2023.

PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, who made this declaration in Abuja on Thursday in a session with the media on the third anniversary of his leadership, however, noted that it was too early to dwell on the politics of 2023 as the nation is beset with many problems.

He maintained that the main opposition party is still waiting for the 2019 election post mortem being prepared by Governor Bala Muhammed’s committee, set up to determine why the party lost the election.

He said: “On the issue of the former President, I stand by my report. The Bala Committee is still working, coming out with a report of why we lost and by the time they finish, we will take a decision and the decision will not be for the NWC only but the entirety of our party.

“And I believe that whoever that is interested in 2023 maybe including the former President, the thing is that the PDP is a party for all. Everybody will have that opportunity but in clear terms, we have not taken any decision to give anybody the ticket for now.

“You can’t be talking of ticket when the country is in a terribly bad shape and I think we should face that fact first and press, the people in government should do better, to secure us and better the economic agenda for the good of the people. We are not going to talk about who will or will not get the ticket now.”

He further explained: “I know you the media are interested in zoning, but our party has a clear method of doing things. After the general election, we set up a panel to study and appraise our performance and make necessary recommendations. The Governor of Bauchi state, H.E Alhaji Bala Mohammed is heading the committee and they are still working.

“We did the same thing when we lost the election in 2015 when we set up the Senator Ike Ekweremadu committee to look into why we lost. It was from that report that the party took action towards 2019.

“The same way this time, we must study our last outing before looking ahead. We can’t be talking of zoning when we have not appraised how we fared in the last election.

“Moreover, the state of the nation today is such that politics or anything concerning 2023, of three years away, should take backstage. Nigeria is in a comatose state today where APC brought it. That should be our concern now.”