Okwe Obi, Abuja
Ahead of next year’s general election, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prof. Jerry Gana, has said he would not mind having former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, as his running mate.
This is even as he argued that Duke’s nomination would be uncharitable to other zones of the country that had not produced a president or vice, explaining further that the South South has had a share of the presidency under former president Goodluck Jonathan.
Recall that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had nullified the candidature of Duke as the presidential candidate of SDP, following a petition written by Gana on the basis of Article 5 of the party’s constitution, which states that the president and the party’s national chairman shall not come from the same zone.
The former Minister of Information and Culture spoke in Abuja, yesterday, at an event where he unveiled his presidential programme code-named SWIFT (Security re-egineering; Wealth creation; Infrastructure excellence and power supply; Technology, education and human development).
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His words: “On January 5, we will be having a meeting with all the stakeholders across the nation, where they
will take away the campaign programme and then we will be everywhere.
“The party will definitely have a strategy for winning. I don’t mind at all having him as my running mate. But let us be very realistic. The South South has just completed the term of the presidency through president Goodluck Jonathan.
“If Nigerians are to be real, they will know that it is too soon to have a presidential running mate from that zone.
There are other zones that want to have the post. If we want to win the election, the party will not do that except it wants to just play mere politics. I am not set out to do that. I want to win the election and take Nigerians
with the programmes we have presented.”
Present at the event were some members of his campaign team including a former Minister of Police Affairs, Humphrey Abah; and former President, International Federation of Female Lawyers (FIDA), Hauwa Shekarau, amongst others.