The unofficial race for the 2027 presidential election continued yesterday, with former President Goodluck Jonathan berating Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, SAN; and Professor Chidi Odinkalu, a law teacher, over their opposition to his presidential bid, and advised them to keep off his political journey.
Keyamo and Odinkalu had warned the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, not to give its presidential ticket to Jonathan to actualise his rumoured plan to return to the presidency in 2027.
In separate media posts, Keyamo and Odinkalu contended that Jonathan’s attempt to contest the 2027 presidential election will face a legal challenge as he had been sworn in twice.
However, Jonathan, responding through his brother, Robert Azibaola, warned the two legal practitioners to steer clear of his bid to return to the Presidency, arguing that it is none of their business to dabble into it.
According to him, Jonathan is qualified to run.
Azibaola wrote on his verified Facebook page yesterday: “Dear Festus Keyamo, SAN, Chidi Odinkalu (Prof.) I greet both of you.
“For the record, three of us are lawyers. We all were pro-demcracy activists in the 90s, and I was a better activist than both of you combined.
“Rule No. I: Do not offer legal advice where none is solicited. GEJ (PDP) has numerous, more cerebral, more experienced SANs at his disposal that give him sound, unblemished, professional legal advice only. “Please note: GEJ is 100% constitutionally and legally qualified to contest, if he chooses to. If he chooses not to yield to the overwhelming calls to run, it would not be because he is not qualified.
“Your screwed, unsolicited legal view is not of any concern in his bucket list, and it will never be. Don’t waste your precious time dwelling on this.
“Or should I schedule a meeting with me so you can get properly educated on the subsisting court judgments on this, one of which your party, APC, was a party?
“I beg una, make we no dey put too much water inside belle for another person disco dance, make long line no form for latrine door). This is not a confirmation that GEJ is running, though,” Azibaola wrote.
Although Jonathan has not yet officially declared to run for the 2027 election, opponents in other political parties have already begun to attack his candidacy, arguing that he should not return so as not to jeopardise the chances of the South to maintain the presidency.
It is still unclear, though, if the former president, who is being wooed by some PDP leaders will run or not, given what appears as early attempts by some elements to shoot his ambition down before he even makes a formal declaration.
He warned that for the 2027 presidential election, Jonathan is being misled by some political hawks into contesting.
His words: “In the road up to 2023, I told my colleagues that PDP was shooting itself in the foot. You cannot have the presidential candidate and, at the same time, the national chairman of the party. They stole the presidential ticket and also took the national chairmanship. I said it would purge them, and it did. I have no regrets.”
He further cautioned Jonathan not to allow himself to be used again by politicians who deceived him in the past.
“I know Jonathan very well. He has international respect and should maintain that. These same people weighing Jonathan down are the ones who played him in 2015.
They are only trying to cause confusion in the party,” Wike added. He also criticised Nigeria’s political culture, noting that candidates who lose elections rarely accept defeat without raising allegations against the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. “Tell me which election INEC conducted that people didn’t complain about. Is there anybody who has lost an election in this country and has come out to concede, apart from Jonathan? Mention one,” he stated.
This came on a day the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Mr Nyesom Wike, said former President Jonathan is being deceived to run and cautioned that handing former Anambra State governor, Mr Peter Obi, a presidential ticket will spell doom for the PDP.
Boasting about President Bola Tinubu’s re-election chances, Wike, who said he is ready to place a bet, also dismissed former Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai’s claim that President Tinubu will come a distant third in the 2027 presidential election, describing the assertion as faulty and mathematically inaccurate.
Meanwhile, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has said Nigerians, not the All Progressives Congress (APC), or the opposition PDP will determine the outcome of the 2027 presidential election.
