Jonathan picks nomination form

Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday picked the presidential nomination form of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Jonathan, accompanied by ministers and some PDP governors, arrived at the party’s Abuja secretariat at 2. 05 pm.

During a brief ceremony, the President thanked the leadership and members of the party for making him the party’s candidate.

After collecting the form, the President said: “I could still have picked the form if they did not give me. But giving me the right of first refusal has attracted more people than ordinarily it would have had.

“Mr. Chairman, I thank you and extend our appreciation to other great members of our party, especially members of the National Executive Committee who uniamously endorsed that decision.

“Secondly, let me use this unique opportunity to thank the PDP Governors Forum for providing the N2 million for the procurement of the expression of interest form and the N20 million for the procurement of the nomination form.

“Let me also thank members of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) for providing N2 million for the expression of interest form and N20 million for the procurement of nomination form.”

Jonathan said youths, women and students from the six geopolitical zones also contributed to the procurement of the form.

“I remain most grateful for their gesture and I thank them for beliving first in this country; secondly for believing in the PDP because they know that this form is for the PDP ticket, and lastly for believing in me.

“What I can say is to reassure them that I will work will all Nigerians and I will always maintain that no matter how strong a President is all over the world, the President is only one individual and you alone can’t do anything; you alone cannot change the society.

“For you to succeed, you work with people. So if you are succeeding, that means we have a team that is working to transform this country. So I will work with all Nigerians to make sure that we move our country to the next level.

“I always say that the days we continue to say Nigeria is a potential great country are over. Nigeria is a great country. And we just demonstrated that in the way we collectively handled the Ebola case.

“Let me again thank all of you who are here for this brief ceremony and reassure you that we will not let you down.”

The party extended the deadline for the collection of expression of interest and nomination forms, which ought to have closed yesterday, till November 6. Two aspirants had complained that after paying for the forms, they were not given because the party said it had only one form.