A lawyer and supporter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Ladipo Johnson on Monday said despite the number of political heavyweights showing interest in contesting for the position of the president of Nigeria in the 2015 general election, the party has the wherewithal to produce a candidate that will fly its flag without causing ripples within the party.
“I believe it will be properly handled, whether it is an outright primary or you have a consensus candidate,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday.
He, however, debunked rumours that Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso had shelved plans to contest in the party’s presidential primaries.
“Kwankwaso will take his message to the people tomorrow and to the party in the next one month to say to them that he believes, in all sincerity and humility, that he is the person that can take on any person being brought forward by the PDP and lead this country to where the majority of the people want us to go to.
“I do not think he is stepping down, but he will accept the final result of the primaries because he believes in the party first mantra,” he said.
He also had some nice words for the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and former military Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who he said told their supporters that “we are one and we must make sure that we present a credible alternative to what we have now”, insisting that the APC would not have any internal rancour.
He further noted that “the APC has not made any decision on mischievous headlines” suggesting a Muslim-Muslim ticket by the party, adding that “there are certain people who are trying to box the APC into a corner, to say it is an Islamic party”.
He brushed aside claims that the APC was a Muslim dominated party, maintaining that “there are many Christians in the APC. It is not a Muslim party, it is not a singular-religious party”.
Mr Ladipo also accused the present government of “dividing the country more than ever before”.
“We are at a stage where we are more defensive of where we are coming from ethnic wise and religious wise” he said, explaining that “that is what President Obasanjo is saying that you cannot be insensitive at this period in time”.
The legal practitioner also agreed that General Buhari had earlier said that there was a possibility of him picking a Muslim as his running mate because “he doesn’t feel he should be restricted based on the person’s religious beliefs”.
He justified the fact that all those that have shown interest in flying the APC’s flag during the 2015 presidential election were from the northern part of the country, saying: “the only presidential candidate is coming from the South South in the PDP”.
“Every political party takes decisions based on what it feels the people and the country needs to move forward.
“It may be that the APC subconsciously has decided that maybe it is time for the presidency to rotate back to the northern part of the country and if that is the case, then so be it,” he said. “I feel it will create some form of balance and help us to move forward in the next four to five years.”
Mr Ladipo insisted that what Nigeria needed at the moment was the kind of change that Kwankwaso had effected in the north western state of Kano.
Though the Governor is yet to make his intentions known to Nigerians and the APC, Mr Ladipo maintained that Kwankwaso still had one month to do so.
Meanwhile, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and former military Head of State, Gen Muhammadu Buhari have declared their intentions to run for the President, under the platform of the APC, come 2015.
