President Goodluck Jonathan has finally announced his interest to contest in the 2015 presidential election.
Jonathan made the intention known on Thursday, informing leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that he would get the nomination form before the set deadline.
The party had earlier indicated that it would not shift the deadline for obtaining nomination forms under any condition.
Over time, Jonathan’s body language had betrayed his willingness to seek re-election, even though his government is believed to be plagued with a host of challenges.
To ensure a successful declaration exercise, scheduled for between 7th and 15th November, the president has set up a Presidential Declaration Committee headed by Dr. Haliru Bello, a former Minister of Defence, to prepare a programme for the declaration.
You Will Loose Our State, PDP Faction Tells Jonathan
However, as the split in the Ebonyi State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gets intense, a faction of the warring party members have warned President Goodluck Jonathan of a likelihood that he would loose the state in the 2015 general elections.
At a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday, the aggrieved faction said it could no longer bear the excesses of the state governor, Mr. Martin Elechi, accusing the governor of imposing candidates on the party in the State with reckless abandon.
The faction, led by Mike Awo, said, because of the provocation, many people in the state could embark on a protest vote against the candidates and the President in the forthcoming elections.
The group said part of Elechi’s high-handedness was that he had ensured that a meeting of the party caucus, as provided for in the constitution, had never been held since 2007 when Elechi won as governor and that the governor alone had been acting on behalf of the party without carrying others along.
According to the faction, during the last state congress, many of members showed interest to contest for party positions but were not even allowed to obtain the nomination forms, let alone further their desires to contest the election.
Awo said it may interest people to know that the party in Ebonyi State compromises of aggrieved members and that the former state chairman of the party was intimidated to resign and leave the way for a stooge who would do the bidding of the governor.
“From the foregoing it is now very obvious that if there is no intervention, PDP will die a natural death in that state chapter and the President stands the risk of losing election in Ebonyi State,” Awo said adding that though the faction was not against zoning in the State, the way and manner the governor went about imposing candidates smirks of hate and political delinquency.
