With one year into the Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency, former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has indicated interest to run for the presidency under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019. He is the first to have indicated interest to contest the presidency under the opposition PDP.
Lamido was one of the contenders for the presidency during the preparations for the PDP primaries in 2014 until the party gave consensus candidateship to former President Goodluck Jonathan, a development which led to the withdrawal of all the contenders, especially from the North, to give Jonathan a chance.
Lamido made this declaration Monday, April 25, 2016 when fielding questions from journalists in his village Bamaina in Birnin Kudu Local Government Area of Jigawa State.
He told Telegraph that he is ready to battle for the party’s ticket knowing that the ticket is not earned on a platter of gold. He, however, said despite his readiness to go for the presidency, his decision is predicated on the willingness of the party to give him the ticket through the party primaries.
He said he would be grateful if he is given the ticket.
He said that “although there are issues in the party that we are all working to resolve, we hope to have success soon and come out united. As I’m talking to you now, we are working silently to resolve our differences and bring back to our fold those that left the party for APC”.
The former Jigawa governor agreed that the internal crisis in PDP was the reason for its defeat in the 2015 general elections, noting that the party was working towards resolving those issues and reclaim the lost glory.
He said that the party has the capacity to rule the country again but the members must work hard to achieve that. He denied any rift between him and his successor, Governor Muhammad Badaru of APC, insisting that both of them had mutual respect for each other and he had no differences with him other than political ideologies.
