On Friday, supporters of former President Goodluck Jonathan stormed the national secretariat of the All Progressives Congress to demand that he be adopted as the party’s consensus presidential candidate.
While drumming and dancing in front of the secretariat, the throngs of demonstrators displayed a number of banners and signs that read “Goodluck on your mandate we stand” and “Nigeria needs Jonathan.”
The group, which issued a statement under the auspices of the Goodluck Nigeria Ambassadors, urged the President, Muhammadu Buhari, and Abdullahi Adamu-led leadership of the party to adopt the former president as the APC consensus candidate.
Umar Wanda, a native of Gombe State and one of the GNA coordinators, told our correspondent that the country needs Jonathan to steer its affairs, especially at this critical time.
He said, “We are calling on the Nigerian president and national working committee under the distinguished leadership of Senator Dr. Abdullahi Adamu to adopt Goodluck Jonathan as the consensus candidate for the betterment of this country.
“We have seen what he had done in the last six years when he was steering the affairs of this country. We need him most. We need him at this crucial time because Nigeria needs to be united. I believe he will be the only person that will unite this country so that he will take us to the promised land where we ought to be and where we should be in this country.”
The development is coming in the wake of denial that the presidency is nursing a plan to ‘foist’ Jonathan on the party.
This is even as the APC National Vice Chairman (North-West), Mallam Salihu Lukman, had declared that the former deputy governor of Bayelsa is not a card-carrying member of the APC.
Jonathan himself had rejected the APC expression of interest and nomination forms for the presidential ticket bought for him by the Fulani and Almajiri communities.
He was also absent during the screening of all 23 presidential aspirants three days ago at Transcorp Hilton, venue of the exercis