Former governor of Jigawa state and Nigeria ex foreign affairs minister, Sule Lamido has said that he will contest the 2019 presidential election should the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) find him deserving of the ticket.
Lamido who spoke to news men in his village, Bamaina in Birnin-kudu local government area of the state, admitted, though, that he would have to first earn it, as nobody gets the PDP presidential ticket on a platter of gold.
“If my party finds me worthy of the party’s presidential ticket to serve Nigeria, I will thank God and oblige,” he said.
“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.”
He blamed PDP’s underwhelming outing at the 2015 general election on its internal crisis.
“PDP has the capacity to rule the country again but the members must work hard to achieve that,” he said even as he denied any rift with his successor, Muhammad Badaru of APC.
“We have mutual respect for each other and I have no differences with him other than political ideologies.”
Earlier on Saturday, Lamido, seeking to explain the poor performance of PDP in the north at the 2015 general election, had claimed that many northerners did not have the freedom to vote their choices because of the branding of the PDP as a Christian party.
“In the build-up to the last general election, PDP was vilified, intimidated with religion, falsehoods and propaganda through Facebook postings. Rwandan genocide pictures were posted as Boko Haram victims. PDP was blackmailed into silence,” he said.
“When you queued to vote in the north, people viewed you as an infidel. You were all there and these things happened in a country where freedom should be the operating word. APC man can vote APC but if Lamido votes PDP, he is a Christian; he is a pastor.” [myad]
