Oluwajana: APC Risks Losing in 2023 If Jonathan Emerges Consensus Candidate

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The immediate past National Vice Chairman (South-west) of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Bankole Oluwajana yesterday took on some cabals promoting the adoption of former President Goodluck Jonathan as the consensus candidate of the ruling party for the 2023 presidential election.

Oluwajana, a former Company Secretary of NAL Merchant Bank, warned President Muhammadu Buhari, APC National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu and other members of the National Working Committee (NWC) that the ruling party would lose the 2023 poll if it allowed Jonathan contest on its platform in 2023. 

He gave the warning in a telephone interview with yesterday, dismissing the plan to adopt Jonathan as the APC consensus candidate as a mere hearsay.

A Federal High Court sitting in Yenagoa had ruled that Jonathan’s right to vie for the presidency a second time could not be stopped by any retroactive law.

The presiding judge, Justice Isa Hamma Dashen, delivered the judgement in a suit marked FHC/YNG/CS/86/2022 on Friday.

Faulting those projecting Jonatan as the APC consensus candidate, Oluwajana warned that the ruling party risked losing the 2023 presidential election if it allowed the former president as the consensus candidate.

After telling Nigerians that Jonathan led one of the most corrupt governments in the history of Nigeria, the party chieftain observed that it would be hypocritical of a progressive party to adopt the same president it defeated seven years ago due to established cases of misgovernance.

From the political perspective, Oluwajana disclosed that nobody “has formally informed us that Jonathan has joined APC or has intention to contest the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the APC.”

As of today, he said Jonathan was not officially a registered member of the ruling party, noting that Bayelsa APC had no record of his membership based on what the state chapter said three weeks ago.

He lamented that politics “is a more serious game than what the ruling APC is gradually degenerating into or what some people are presenting to the public. In politics, there is a system. Politics is a team game.”

As a party chieftain, Oluwajan said he was not aware of Jonathan’s defection to the APC; neither had he been granted waiver to contest the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the APC.

He said: “I am the immediate past National Vice Chairman (South-west). I did not hear anything about Jonathan’s intention to run on the platform of the APC. If I have not heard about it at my level, what then do you expect others who were lower in ranks to my status say? 

“These are the people that will vote for us. Again, how do I tell them that Jonathan is now our arrow man for the 2023 election. We knew what we did in 2014/2015 when we were campaigning for Buhari. 

“We told Nigerians and the entire world that everything about Jonathan was bad. There was no name we did not call Jonathan in 2015. How do I go back and tell them that all that we said about the former president are lies? Somebody needs to teach me to be able to do that intensively. 

“If some people just want APC to lose this election, let them come out. They should not allow us to waste our time. Many of us are professionals with serious jobs in our hands. We cannot just be treated as if we are just nonsensical drinkards on the streets whom they think will just swallow whatever they say or want,” Oluwajana said.

He also said: “In APC, we have President Muhammmadu Buhari. We have our National Chairman, Senator Abdulahi Adamu. We have our National Leader, Senator Bola Tinubu. We also have governors across all states. 

“We have not heard from any of our leaders that Jonathan had at any time joined the APC. If Jonathan is not a member of the APC, how can he participate in the forthcoming presidential primary? Or can the APC adopt him as our consensus candidate. It will be difficult. 

“Nigeria “is not under a military regime where an order will be given and people will obey.I know how we campaigned against Jonathan in 2015. I know how we convinced our followers to vote out the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Jonathan. 

“Now, they want to bring back the same person we rejected in 2015. On what grounds? On what basis? It will be a hard sell for our party. It will be difficult to convince our followers to accept him after we rejected him. 

“What are we going to tell them? How are we going to convince them to accept Jonathan given his antecedents when he was in office. Honestly, it will be difficult to go back to my ward to market Jonathan.”