Punchng:

Jonathan, PDP govs debate Buhari challenge
President Goodluck Jonathan has warned the Peoples
Democratic Party governors against backing unpopular
candidates as their successors in their respective states.
This is one of the issues discussed at the meeting the
President had with the governors at the Presidential Villa,
Abuja on Sunday night.
The meeting ended in the early hours of Monday.
The meeting was said to have discussed the presidential
ambition of a former Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu
Buhari (retd.) on the platform of the All Progressives
Congress.
While some of the governors were said to have asked the
President for “a Buhari challenge”, others were said to have
dismissed it, saying that the former leader could not defeat
the President in 2015 if he emerged as the candidate of the
APC.
President Jonathan was said to have invited the governors to
the meeting over the growing complaints of endorsements in
their states.
A source at the meeting, who spoke with one of our
correspondents on condition of anonymity, said the President
said he was not against the governors picking and working for
their preferred candidates as their successors.
The source said, “The President said he was not against us
(governors) picking our candidates, but that we should make
sure we have a popular person without blemish. He said such
a candidate must also be acceptable to the generality of the
members of the party in our states and that the candidates
must be able to win the election.
“It is wrong to say the President is against us. He also said
that we should also make sure that the candidate must have a
clean record so that the opposition will not capitalise on this
against such a candidate at the election petition tribunal.”
The source said that the meeting also discussed the desire of
some of the governors to vie for senatorial seats on the
platform of the party.
While saying that no concrete agreement was reached on this,
he said the meeting agreed that there would be another
round of discussions, which he said would involve the
national leadership of the party.
The issue of senatorial seats involving the governors and
sitting senators is also causing confusion in some states as
senators who the governors are angling to replace are said to
be demanding that they should be made to also replace their
state governors in 2015.
“If the governors want to take our position, they should also
allow us to take their positions as governors,” one of the
aggrieved senators was said to have complained to the
President.
Earlier, some state governors who spoke with State House
correspondents at the end of the meeting had confirmed that
the President summoned the parley to enable them to further
strategise ahead of the 2015 elections.
Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State said the meeting
devised means of ensuring that the party’s primaries were
rancour-free.
He said, “We discussed our party and the primaries that will
soon come. We looked at how to fortify our party to avoid
rancour or infighting to enable us to do very well both in the
primaries and general elections in 2015.”
He said the issue of the alleged rancour between state
governors and members of the party’s National Working
Committee over endorsements of candidates was not
discussed at the meeting.
He however assured all stakeholders that the party’s
primaries would be free and fair.
Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State, Governor James
Ngilari of Adamawa State and the deputy governor of Kogi
State, Yomi Awoniyi, also corroborated Orji’s position