Former federal lawmaker Shehu Sani has advised former President Goodluck Jonathan not to recontest for presidency in the 2027 election.
Sani, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme, said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party Jonathan used to win the election in 2011, is no longer united.
The ex-federal lawmaker said, “Each time there is an election, the name of Jonathan comes up, but it is his volition to contest, but I advise him not to do that. The reason is very simple: the PDP he used to know is not the PDP now.
“The PDP in the South-West is endorsing the president. Some members of the party are in the coalition. So, it is the party he used to know so he shouldn’t waste his time.”
Jonathan, who deputised former President Umaru Yar’adua for three years before his death, succeeded him on May 6, 2010, till May 29, 2011. He was elected on the PDP platform and was in power till May 29, 2015. Jonathan also re-contested in 2015 but lost to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Constitutionally, Jonathan still has one term of four years to be president, but he has not shown interest in re-contesting.
Ahead of the 2027 election, talks of Jonathan’s return have gained momentum within political circles, especially with debate about a one-term Southern presidency and the coming of the new opposition coalition floated by the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Sani, the Senator for Kaduna Central in the 8th National Assembly, said the coalition members are not ideologically different from President Bola Tinubu.
The former lawmaker said, “We are in a democracy, and it is within the right and ambit of our democratic experiment or law to have an opposition that will give an alternative, but if their only cause for power is to remove Tinubu without providing any alternative to governance and his style, then, they have no agenda.
“The people that constitute the coalition today are not ideologically and philosophically different from the programmes which the Tinubu administration is prosecuting. So, it’s not like we have a Marxist and a Capitalist or a Neo-Liberal and a Conservative.
“During their campaigns and in their dear lives, you can see those liberal values of devaluation and removal of subsidy and some other party.”
