The Director-General of the Progressives Governor Forum, Dr. Salihu Lukman, on Monday said, the party’s ticket will be open for all members to compete for.
He explained that politics was all about contestation as such, foreclosures which had defined Nigerian politics in the past, was effectively dead.
Lukman said this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja. The PGF DG noted that the level playing arrangement being nurtured by the party will throw up the best candidates for various elective positions in the country by 2023.
He dismissed speculations making the rounds that the party had agreed on a zoning arrangement.
The APC Chieftain maintained that neither the party nor the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd,), has decided where the party’s ticket would be going.
Lukeman said, “The level playing field in APC has been well conceived, nurtured, and now gaining more traction by the day.
“For instance, everybody could see that the place is open whether you call it with reference to 2023 or reference to any election, it’s about the fact that the spirit of political contest in the party is now very high. It means that if you want to negotiate, as a good negotiator if you want to canvass, as a good canvasser for a specific interest, the party is up to you.
“The pertinent point to make here is that nobody can say President Buhari has decided or there is a decision on the party, this is where it would go.
“That is why in the whole speculation out there in the public, you’ll see that there are so many names that are being put in the public space which means that in 2023 there would be a contest in APC.
“And if you’re a politician, what are you looking for, is it not contest? So, you go to where you know that if you play your card very well, there is a 50-50 chance that you can get what you want, when you want it and where you want it.
“That is the message now which the President has nurtured and popularized in the APC. By extension, it serves a death knell that marks the end of foreclosure in political contests in Nigerian politics. What we are saying is that foreclosure in our political contests is dead.”
Speaking about the recent defection of the Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi to the APC, he said, the defection was significant in the sense that it was in spite of the erroneous impression that the APC was anti-South East.

By John Alechenu