Jonathan Personally Speaks On Contesting 2023 Presidency

But when journalists accosted him in a brief session on Friday after attending an event organised by the Commonwealth Community Choir in Abuja, the nation’s capital, Jonathan was somewhat evasive about the issue put across to him.

He did not give a definite position on his rumoured ambition thus fueling more speculations about his 2023 reported ambition could be real.

When asked if he would be joining the presidential race in the 2023 general elections, Dr Jonathan said, “It is too early to talk about that.”

BIGPENNGR.COM had earlier reported that Jonathan’s recent ‘political romance’ with the ruling party had sparked the rumour mill about him being primed for the presidency again.

The rumour was further fueled when some Governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress visited the former President, prompting a ripple effects reactions from the PDP and APC and other well meaning Nigerians.

However, recalls the former president had earlier said that the APC governors’ visit to his residency was to celebrate him and not for any political party affair in a terse statement by Ikechukwu Eze, his media aide. Jonathan had discarded the rumor he had intention to join the ruling APC or contest in the 2023 Presidential election.

“PDP governors also visited him; it was not only APC governors. Governor Bala Muhammad was there. They visited him as a father and statesman to celebrate with him; it was not a political party affair.

“Anything you are hearing about 2023 is a rumour and we don’t have time to be responding to rumours; the former president is a very busy person to be listening to rumours,” the statement reads.

Jonathan contested the 2015 presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but lost and conceded defeat to President Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

It was the first time an incumbent president would lose re-election and conceded defeat in the history of Nigeria.

This earned him accolades within and outside the country, leading to his emergence as ECOWAS special envoy. He first assumed the office of the President of Nigeria between 2010 to 2011, succeeding former President Musa Yar’Adua’s who died May 5, 2010.

Upon completing the term, Dr Jonathan ran for President on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2011 and won, extending his stay in office by another four years. He had served as the Bayelsa State Governor between 2005 and 2007, and later Vice President from 2007 to 2010.