President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday night, met with governors under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The meeting ended in the early hours of Monday discussed the presidential ambition of a former Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
The meeting was said to have been summoned by the president to enable them to further strategise ahead of the 2015 elections.
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.
The divergent views notwithstanding, a source said the President and the governors agreed to wait till former Head of State Gen. Muhammadu Buhari emerges the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before coming up with “appropriate response” to issues the aspirant raised last week.
Also discussed at the meeting was the issue of presenting unpopular candidates by outgoing governors which will make their defeat very easy.
President Jonathan has warned the governors against backing unpopular candidates as their successors in their respective 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.
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