I’ll challenge Jonathan for PDP ticket —Balewa’s son

The son of Nigeria’s First Republic Prime Minister, Dr. Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa-Balewa, has said he will contest the 2015 presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Tafawa-Balewa condemned the plot by the national leadership of the party to demoralise other presidential aspirants by adopting President Goodluck Jonathan as the sole presidential candidate of the party

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He was responding to the adoption of Jonathan by the party’s National Executive Committee at its meeting in Abuja on Thursday.

With the adoption, the party said it expected all members of the party, including those nursing presidential ambition, to drop it and queue behind the President.

But Tafawa-Balewa said he would not be intimidated with such a decision.

He said in a statement on Sunday that such an endorsement was undemocratic.

He said, “I’m not intimidated by the decision of the PDP governors and the party to support the second term aspiration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

“What type of democracy do we have? Is the PDP a communist party? Where is the place of internal democracy?”

He said the greater majority of Nigerians had been yearning for a leadership capable of fulfilling their high expectations and aspirations.

He asked Nigerians to listen to facts and that they should not be carried away with the party’s decision.

“What Nigerians need and where they want the country to be in future are paramount issues. We need to put our ideas before the people and allow them to decide,” he added.

Promising to make Nigeria an industrialised country, Tafawa-Balewa said his administration would ensure zero unemployment, better education, maximum security and increased power supply.

“Nigeria needs to move from Third World to First World,” he said.

On financial muscle to withstand the pressure of a presidential contest, he insisted that good Nigerians would support him fully.