A former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, on Sunday, said contrary to the popular belief, Nigerians lost the presidential election in 2015 and not the Peoples Democratic Party.
Lamido said this is evident in the current realities in the country since 2015 when the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), won the election.
When asked if the PDP now has the capacity to win election in 2023, having lost in 2015 and 2019, the ex-governor said, “There was a party called PDP which won election in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 but lost in 2015. Therefore, Nigerians know the PDP very well. We didn’t lose the election in 2015 or 2019, Nigerians lost the elections; Nigerians lost, not us.”
He added, “See what we have today. See our situation. Look at our economy, look at security…there are a number if things…look at our common bonds and brothers and sisters.
“Look at the loss of confidence…the loss of trust and bond. I have been very honest, it was not PDP that lost, it was Nigerians that lost. If we lose again in 2023, it is Nigerians who lose, not PDP.”
Lamido, who featured on the current affairs programme of Channels Television, Sunday Politics, monitored from Abuja, said the ongoing moves for a consensus presidential candidate for the PDP in the 2023 general elections, is not about the regions – North or South – but a party consensus.
“In PDP, whatever we do is purely for Nigerians, not for us because there are expectations from us in the PDP. People see the PDP as the only hope in Nigeria today,” he stated.
According to him, building a consensus is about trust among regions, geopolitical zones, religious and ethnic blocs in the country. He pointed out that the next president of Nigeria must be somebody who can restore the trust between people of the different parts of the country.
He said, “Today before you do anything else, you need to restore that thing called trust between ourselves. Today in Nigeria, we don’t trust each other; we don’t believe in ourselves anymore. There are various cracks along with religion.
“When you talk about northerners, southerners, westerners, our communal bond is not there anymore. Our common bond is humanity. We are Nigerian people who are supposed to be there for each other.”
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