The Peoples Democratic Party has responded to the rumoured defection of former President Goodluck Jonathan into the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The PDP was reacting to a visit by some APC governors and chieftains to the Abuja residence of the former president last month.
The visit by the APC chieftains to Jonathan, who contested in the 2011 and 2015 presidential elections on the platform of the PDP, raised the stakes in permutations for the 2023 general elections.
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But speaking on Thursday, December 10, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, dispelled reports that Jonathan was about to dump the party for the APC ahead of the 2023 elections. Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State had defected from the PDP to the APC last month, saying more opposition politicians would join the ruling APC.
However, the PDP spokesperson said the party was not bothered by Umahi’s defection as well as the recent visit by the APC chieftains to Jonathan’s Abuja residence.
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“Why should we be bothered about people who are working on innuendos and are claiming they are working. Where is the action?
“Because some governors went to visit (former) President Goodluck Jonathan on his birthday, then, it is concluded that he has joined APC? For me, there are many things I cannot say in the public but I want to assure Nigerians that former President Goodluck Jonathan is politically savvy enough to know he has no space in the All Progressives Congress,” Ologbondiyan stated on a television programme in Lagos on Thursday.
Jonathan was elected president in 2011 and lost to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress in 2015. His concession call to Buhari which was first of its kind endeared him to many within and outside Nigeria.
The former Bayelsa State governor has also been active in his role as Special Envoy of the Economic Community of West African States.
Analysts have argued that he is still eligible to run for another single term of four years in office.
