The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday, September 18, 2014 endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan as its candidate for the 2015 presidential polls.
The decision was made at a meeting of the Board which was had started on Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at the Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja on. In addition, the board approved the timetable and guidelines for the upcoming national convention and party primaries.
A member of the Bot and former minister of information, Professor Jerry Gana made the disclosure to state house correspondents at the end of the meeting which ended in the early hours of Thursday, September 18, 2014.
Gana’s disclosure was also backed up by by deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu and Walid Jibril, the secretary of the BoT.
Gana said the decision to endorse President Jonathan was a unanimous one after governor of Akwa Ibom state and chairman of the PDP governors forum, Godswill Akpabio had intimated them of the forum’s earlier resolve to endorse the incumbent President, saying none of the sitting governors would contest against President Jonathan.
He said, “BoT was so informed today about this and that decision by the governors was fully endorsed in a motion by the BoT on its own. Having received that news, the BoT also unanimously resolved that because of the excellent work which Mr President has done, he should be the party’s sole candidate. The decision was also informed by the mature, humble and dedicated way the president has been leading Nigeria. When you add to that, the way he has been handling very sensitive national issues, the Board of Trustees is delighted, convinced and overwhelmed by the fact that we have a very impressive candidate. Therefore, the BoT also unanimously resolved that President Goodluck Jonathan be the sole candidate of the party in the forth coming election. That was unanimously resolved with a standing ovation and the BoT is very excited.”
He continued by heaping praise on the governors. He said, “I want to emphasise that we asked the governors and they said all the PDP governors signed the endorsement document which is going to be presented to the president in another session.”
On the issue of the absence of Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido, from the PDP governors forum meeting, Gana stated that governor Akpabia had availed to the BoT that he (Akpabio) had spoken to governor Lamido who directed his deputy who had represented him to sign the document on his behalf.
Gana enthused: “In other words, Lamido authorised his deputy to sign on his behalf, and therefore the answer to your question is that he too endorsed that decision. We asked the same question and that is the answer we got.”
Fielding questions from journalists on whether the decision was not compromising the party’s internal democracy, Ekweremadu said: “The name of our party is the Peoples Democratic Party. So, democracy is part of us and we are very conscious of the need to have internal democracy in our party. But you must remember that consensus building is also part of democracy. For us in the PDP, we believe that the BoT is the conscience of the party. So, if the BoT has agreed to endorse Mr President as the candidate of the party, what we are simply saying is that we are persuading every member of the party to accept that position. We are not going to force any person, but we are making a strong statement; we are persuading our people strongly to accept this position for the reasons earlier mentioned. It is also important for us to know that we need to reward hard work; we need to reward commitment; we need to reward achievement. We need to reward performance.”
He continued: “We are borrowing from other democracy, including the United States of America where a sitting president who has done so well is expected to be rewarded by his party with a ticket. So, we are building a tradition which we hope that those who will come after us will be able to imbibe. This is also within the tenet of democracy, not only in Nigeria but in other parts of the world.”
Gana also told news men that that the new guidelines and timetable for the upcoming party primaries will be presented to the National Executive Council (NEC) at its meeting billed for Thursday, September 18, 2014 for endorsement.
