President Goodluck Jonathan has formally defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in a bid to recontest for President in 2023<\/p>\n
This comes hours after disowning a nomination form purportedly procured for him by a northern group.<\/span><\/p>\n Following reports that a coalition of northern socio-cultural groups, basically of Fulani extraction, purchased N100 million nomination and expression of interest forms of the APC for the former President to contest for President again in 2023, Jonathan swiftly rejected the presidential form purchased for him on Monday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking through his Media Adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, the former president said it was an insult for the group to have bought him the form without his permission.<\/span><\/p>\n But according to the News Agency of Nigeria, a credible source in Jonathan\u2019s camp said the former President has finally decided to vie for the top office again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jonathan lost to the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told NAN that the former president has formally joined the APC after registering at his Otuoke Ward in Bayelsa.<\/span><\/p>\n He is expected to submit the duly filled forms on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSeveral bigwigs of the party have also been calling Jonathan to pledge their loyalty and support to the former president,\u2019\u2019 the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n The source told NAN political correspondent late on Wednesday that some influential African leaders had called Mr Jonathan earlier on Monday to advise him \u201cto contest the election in the interest of Nigeria”.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt least three top African leaders called the former president on the matter. They all urged him to run.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne of them specifically told him that it didn\u2019t make sense travelling all over Africa settling disputes only to shy away from leadership responsibility in his home country.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnother reminded him of the implication of failing to put the experiences he garnered as a former Nigerian president and as a continental statesman to good use,\u201d the source also said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to the source, some of the African leaders told Jonathan that Nigeria was passing through challenging times and in need of “a unifier like Jonathan at this time\u2019\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n The source did not disclose the names of the African leaders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Goodluck Jonathan has formally defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in a bid to recontest for President in 2023 This comes hours after disowning a nomination form purportedly procured for him by a northern group. Following reports that a coalition of northern socio-cultural groups, basically of Fulani extraction, purchased N100 million nomination […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[111,4775,313,279],"class_list":["post-8016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-apc","tag-bayelsa-ward","tag-goodluck-jonathan","tag-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8018,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions\/8018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}