The latest contender for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto State.
He has joined two former Senate Presidents, Anyim Pius Anyim and Bukola Saraki, in seeking the PDP ticket.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has not formally declared, but his foot soldiers have almost toured the entire country in mobilising support for the veteran presidential contestant.
In 2023, Southern governors have urged all the political parties to field candidates from the Southern part of the country. The PDP has at least three of its highly influential members seeking the party’s ticket.
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But unlike the PDP, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has only one candidate from the North, Yahaya Bello, seeking the presidential ticket of the party.
Tambuwal said he remains the candidate to beat when making the declaration on Monday in Sokoto.
Tambuwal, who was Nigeria’s House Speaker between 2011 and 2015, contested for the Peoples Democratic Party ticket in 2018 but lost at the October primaries that year to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.
He said he would be running on the platform of the PDP, the country’s main opposition.
Tambuwal has now become the latest contender in the race to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023 — following Bola Tinubu, Rochas Okorocha, Anyim Pius Anyim, David Umahi, Orji Kalu, amongst others.
Tambuwal defected to the PDP from the APC in 2018. At the time, Tinubu said he defected because he wanted to be president.
In response, the governor said in a series of tweets, that he could have run against Buhari for the APC ticket if that was his motivation.
He said: “If I wanted to and if the Presidency is what Ahmed Tinubu thinks I defected, I could contest with President Buhari under the APC. I have what it takes to have contested with Mr President.
“I adduced reasons of my defection to the PDP. The reasons are still on record. Automatic ticket by the APC is certainly not part of that.”
Governor Tambuwal also faulted the claim by the APC chieftain that he left the ruling party because it could not give him the automatic ticket he demanded.
On the contrary, he alleged that Tinubu has shown by making such accusations that the APC lacked a level-playing ground for its members.
Tambuwal said, “In any case, Tinubu is confessing that there is no level-playing ground for all members of the APC; that there is no internal democracy in it, and that some people were denied their right to internal democracy”.
“Tinubu tried to rock the boat when he was denied Buhari’s Vice Presidency. He thinks every other person could behave his way. If I wanted to contest under the APC as president, I could have done so and only the votes could have produced a winner,” he insisted.
In a statement entitled “They Go Away Because We Go the Right Way”, Tinubu alleged that Governor Tambuwal and Senate President Bukola Saraki left the ruling party because the APC refused to give them automatic tickets for the 2019 elections.
The governor defected from the APC on August 1, 2018, the following day the Senate President announced his defection from the ruling party.