Presidency 2023: Jonathan’s planned defection to APC breaches Buhari/Tinubu agreement – Party elders warn

The widely speculated defection of former President Goodluck Jonathan from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is gradually deepening the crack in the ruling party. Some APC elders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declared that the planned defection of the former president to the APC, which, according to him, is attached to the 2023 presidential ticket of the ruling APC, would breach the agreement between President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

The party elders cautioned that the agreement at the time of negotiating the formation of the APC in which the presidential ticket of the party was ceded to President Buhari while the APC national chairman was ceded to Tinubu, was to be reversed at the end of the second tenure of Buhari’s eight years in office in 2023. The elders, some of whom are loyalists of the APC national leader, Tinubu, argued that the planned defection of the former president contradicts the said agreement and breeds ground for distrust of the top hierarchy of the APC leadership.

The party elders protested that the two APC leaders – President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu – had brought together their party platforms, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) led by President Buhari, and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Tinubu, to form the legacy parties that constituted the APC for the 2015 general elections. They argued that Tinubu made immense sacrifices for the coming into existence of the APC, as well as in making Buhari the president in 2015 and 2019, on the basis of which they went into the alliance and the agreement on alleged ceding of the party ticket to the national leader after eight years of the Buhari administration.

The elders warned that breaching or undermining the agreement could precipitate misgivings in the party which may threaten party cohesion. They declared their opposition to the plan by the northern APC leaders to purportedly use former President Jonathan to achieve a one term presidency in the south and, thereafter, argue for a return of the presidency to the north.

The elders, therefore, called on the APC leaders to reconsider the plan and adhere to the said agreement.

Meanwhile, the APC elders said that the southwest caucus in the APC have intensified consultations and are waiting for the return of Tinubu from London to make a declaratory statement on the 2023 presidential race.