A former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has written to inform members of the Peoples Democratic Party of his decision to seek the party's flag in the next presidential election.
According to a report by Vanguard newspaper on Monday, Mr. Lamido said in his letter that all the party needs to reposition Nigeria is to take over power in 2019 and bring the country back to the path of recovery.
Lamenting that the nation has departed from the dreams of the PDP founding fathers, Mr. Lamido said the PDP needs to lead the nation back to a brighter future.
"Today, 57 years after the independence of our dear country, can we in all sincerity claim to have achieved the dream of our founding fathers? Where did we fail and from where did we begin to fail? Nigeria with its natural endowment and human capacity cannot be forgiven for being otherwise.
"We cannot even demonstrate our ability and capacity to meet domestic, regional and global challenges which currently seems to overwhelm us. The PDP will and must lead the nation back into a bright, progressive, and innovative future," the former governor wrote.
Mr. Lamido said "the PDP must rekindle in Nigeria a new hope, a nation of united people with a common and assured destiny" and that the country must demonstrate its "confidence, tenacity, ability and capability to address our domestic regional and global challenges that confront us."
"It is against this background that I offer myself to vie for the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2019 if my party finds me worthy to fly its flag. I am no means claiming to be the only capable material, any PDP member given the trust and support can fly our flag, and I expect many more aspirants will express the desire to run.
"My hope and prayer is that at the end of all the process which I hope will be open, fair transparent and credible is to give Nigeria in 2019 a candidate who will lead the party and Nigeria. This is because there is no alternative to PDP in 2019, it will be a defining moment in the Nigerian political evolution.
"Our imperfect union as a federation should not be an excuse for our legendary failure which appears to have found vent in the call for restructuring, a union of multi-ethnic multi-lingual and multi-religious can certainly task the best of human capacities, but that is precisely the challenge and how to work on it and build a nation of people of a common destiny, and this is where the PDP must raise to the challenge.
"The starting point is where the PDP began in 1998 and critical to it is creating an open environment in which every Nigerian must not only been seen to be, but must be an equal stakeholder and therefore restoring trust and faith in our shared union and this PDP was able to achieve in its first four years," Mr. Lamido said in the letter.
He said while the clamour for restructuring rages, the most important aspects of addressing the Nigerian economy by creating prosperity will make the debate less emotional and sentimental and that the PDP has enough talents to salvage the nations from its current woes.
The PDP, which ruled Nigeria from the dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1999 until it was defeated by the All Progressives Congress in 2015, has zoned its presidential ticket to the Northern region of Nigeria.
The arrangement, however, did not deter Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, who last month publicly declared his ambition to seek the ticket.
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