OUR REPORTERS
After months of speculations and denials, former President Goodluck Jonathan has finally joined the All Progressives Congress (APC). Jonathan who belonged to the Peoples Democracy Party (PDP) lost the nation’s presidency to Muhammadu Buhari of the APC in 2015.
Though Jonathan is yet to announce his defection from the PDP to the APC, his membership of the ruling party was confirmed today after documents surfaced that he has paid the mandatory N100,000 for the expression of interest and nomination forms for the party’s 2023 presidential contest.
It is believed that a coalition of groups funded by two Northern governors picked the forms today on behalf of Jonathan at the International Conference Centre (ICC) in Abuja.
His interest in the presidential contest could not be officially confirmed as Ikechukwu Eze his media aide, could not be reached. His MTN phone line was switched off. Eze had in 2021 told People&Politics that speculations over his principal’s interest in the 2023 contest were unfounded.
In the last seven years, however, the former president has not been attending activities of PDP, the party on whose platform he served as Deputy Governor and Governor of Bayelsa State. He later served as Vice President to President Umaru Yar’adua from 2007.
He took over power when the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died in 2010 and contested the 2011 election, which he won. He lost his reelection to President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
The two influential governors from the northern part of the country are close to Buhari and may have secured the buy-in of a section of the presidency to actualise their agenda of drafting the former president into the presidential race.
The two governors have been playing key roles in the affairs of the APC in the last few years. While one of the governors is from the North West, the other is from the North East geopolitical zone.
President Buhari
If elected as President again, Jonathan can only serve for one term of four years, according to the constitution.
Today the minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, and Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade equally purchased their nomination forms in Abuja.
