APC Says Jonathan Has Been Working For President Buhari’s Administration |The Source

By Akinwale Kasali

The All Progressives Congress, APC, is bent on colliding with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. It is bent on destabilizing the Party with its many claims and allegations.

On the heels of APC’s claims that there will be a mass defection of PDP stalwarts to the APC, the party is now alleging that former President Goodluck  Jonathan has been working secretly for the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

This  claim is coming days after the APC paid a courtesy visit to the former President on his 63rd birthday, raising fears within the PDP family.

However, Statements by APC Spokesman, Yekini Nabena, while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today has further raised a lot of speculations, as the politics of 2023 unfolds.

Nabena openly made the statement that the former President has been working from the APC, with the PDP spokesman, Diran Odeyemi, right beside him in the studio.

But in a tit for tat situation, Adeyemi hit back, claiming that a number of APC Governors are set to defect to the PDP. Both parties traded words against each other thereafter.

Nabena: “Goodluck Jonathan has been working for this government, he has been going to all African countries. If he is not a progressive person, he won’t have been working for this Government. So the PDP should also know that”.

The former President  lost to President Buhari in the 2015 general elections, but he has since taken up several diplomatic assignments across the continent, and is well regarded in the international community.

Recently, the ex-President led talks that helped to de-escalate the crisis in Mali, with Nabena stressing that Jonathan’s work is evidence of the APC’s progressive streak.

However, Odeyemi disagreed, reiterating that the APC is set to witness a couple of top defections to the PDP.

“Many APC Governors are talking to us,” Mr Odeyemi said. “Perhaps Nigerians have not seen the end of these activities. More Governors from APC are coming to join us. And I’m saying it with all emphasis.

“The question we have to ask ourselves is, what has been the achievements of APC now, that will now warrant people to join them, if not for selfish reasons? Nigeria knows which party to vote for in 2023 and that’s what we rely on.”

Not a few people have dismissed Nabena’s claim on Jonathan with a wave of the hand.

They say what Nabena sees as Jonathan  working for the Buhari Government are sub – Continental, Continental and International assignment Jonathan has embarked on.

As a matter of protocol, he must brief his home Government before and after such assignments. It’s standard.

A PDP chieftain who pleaded anonymity added: “Buhari and Jonathan belong to an exclusive club of Presidents of Nigeria. They are very few. Count them. They operate at a different level. Buhari and Jonathan are not enemies. As a sitting President, if Buhari sends Jonathan on a Continental or International assignment, Jonathan will go.”

The PDP chieftain is correct. In the USA, even though President Bill Clinton defeated President  George Bush senior, and confined him to a one – term President, when George Bush Jnr. became the President, he always sent Clinton on assignments, once sending him and his own father, President George Bush Snr. to Haiti on a national assignment.

However, after the former President Olusegun Obasanjo experience, the PDP may have a reason to worry.

In the run-up to the 2015 Presidential election, Obasanjo who was a two-term President under the PDP banner, shockingly abandoned the PDP and its cadidate, Jonathan,  and worked openly for the APC and its candidate, Buhari.

In 2019, when he realised he had made a mistake, he made a u-turn, and backed PDP’s former Vice President Abubarkar Atiku. It didn’t work.

And for the first time, Obasanjo was demystified – by Buhari.