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.
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.
