The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said it is in the process of identifying the best presidential candidate on its platform, ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Walid Jubril stated this on Tuesday in Abuja while he played host to members of the PDP Ward to Ward, a grassroots organisation.
Already, the party has zoned the Presidential ticket in the next general election to the North.
The National Assembly and Presidential election is scheduled for February 16, 2019.
Addressing members of the group, Jubril stressed that a never-do-well will not emerge as the party’s standard bearer.
“All of us as a party, we agreed that the president of Nigeria should come from the North. I enjoin you to support the North to bring and give you a very capable president, a good qualitative President.
“We are all doing what we can in the North with all the leaders to identify who is the best candidate to rule this country, the best person that will take away power from the ruling party because 2019 is our own, 2019 is for PDP,” the elder statesman said.
Some of the presidential hopefuls in the party’s platform include: former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, immediate past PDP National Chairman Ahmed Makarfi, Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo, ex Governors Sule Lamido, Ibrahim Shekarau, Attahiru Bafarawa and a host of others.
None of the presidential hopefuls has formally declared their ambition.
While describing the return of Atiku to the party as a good omen, he called on the party’s bigwigs in the ruling All Progressives Congress to come back.
In veiled reference to former President Olusegun Obasanjo who tore the party’s membership card in the buildup to the 2015 general elections, the BoT Chairman said: “When Atiku left the APC, he did it peacefully unlike some of us, when they left our party, they tore our party card.
“We are also expecting a big return of some of our former governors, our National Assembly members and very renowned party followers. And when this is done, which will be done very quickly, then the party will now come to its stable stand.
“We should encourage anybody who has left us to come back and reunite with us. We will not hate anyone or deprive anybody. It is a good omen for this party that we should receive people.
“We are therefore calling on the present Senate President Saraki, Kwankwaso and all our former legislators who have left this party to come back quickly. When they come back, then we shall all come together and the issue of leadership, we shall then look at it, who want to become the president of Nigeria will now depend on all of us. We all will decide who will be the president of Nigeria and we have set the machinery already”.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
