2015: Jonathan can’t be PDP’s sole candidate, says Atiku

•Ex-VP vows to resist party’s  likely constitution change

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has vowed to resist any attempt to foist President Goodluck Jonathan on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the sole candidate in 2015.

Atiku, who has declared his intention to seek the PDP ticket ahead of the 2015 polls, spoke in Kano yesterday. He was reacting to alleged surreptitious moves to amend the PDP Constitution to pave the way for Jonathan’s sole candidacy.

Elder statesman and Ijaw leader Chief Edwin Clark, in a letter to Niger State Governor Babangida,Aliyu, which he read to reporters in Abuja last week, said there was nothing wrong with a Jonathan sole candidacy.

He said the practice in democratic presidential system of government is that “an incumbent President remains the sole candidate of a political party at the party’s convention, if he or she is willing to contest for a second term in office”.

The former minister said it was the practice in the United States from where Nigeria copied its presidential system for the incumbent President to automatically get his party’s ticket.

He wondered whether the late President Umaru Yar’Adua would not have sought a second term in office if he were to be alive.

Clark said: “To lend credence to the fact that a sitting President is entitled to a second term, the ambitious and unpatriotic governors and some northern conservative politicians confirmed this constitutional provision by saying that it was the second term of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua that the North wanted to complete in 2011.

“In other words, the late President was entitled to eight years in office but Jonathan is entitled to only a single term, contrary to the 1999 Constitution.”

Atiku said: “My position is that as far as PDP Constitution is concerned, any attempt to change the party’s rule to favour the President as a sole candidate in the event of his willingness to re-contest is unconstitutional. The contest should be open to all with the desire to pursue an ambition on the platform of the PDP.

“I don’t think any such amendment of the party constitution will be successful; we are looking forward to a successful transition in 2015.”

Atiku also picked hole in the statement credited to a Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that there would be no election in the North in 2015 due to the security challenges being experienced in the region.

To him, such are uncalled for.

“For me, that is a wrong statement to come from any such office because as far as I am concerned, the entire North is peaceful, except for two states. How can you now say there may not be election in the North with 19 states, just because there is problem in two states.

“We don’t know the man who made the statement is working for; he certainly is not reflecting INEC’s position. It is an inaccurate statement, that we will not go for election in the North.”

On the allegation that INEC and the PDP are working to thwart the All Progressive Congress (APC) registration, Atiku said the allegation was unsubstantiated. He said he conducted a private investigation, which confirmed that the PDP is not behind the registration crisis.