Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said his major priority “is how to ensure that the Peoples Democratic Party regains the Presidency in 2019” while admitting that he is responsible for the party’s electoral loss in 2015.
Jonathan said this when Chief Olabode George and his campaign team paid him a courtesy visit in his country home in Otuoke, Bayelsa State on Tuesday.
A statement by Bode George Media Office after the meeting quoted the ex-President as saying it was his responsibility to ensure that the PDP rose again as a strong political platform to win the next elections.
Jonathan said, “Whether I like it or not, I must take responsibility for the defeat because I led the party to the election. The only thing that will make me sleep well is to ensure that the PDP comes back to power.”
The former President said he was working with other stakeholders to ensure that the party was well organised to achieve this purpose though he preferred to work from the back seat.
He said the party must begin to take the right steps in the right direction to regain the confidence of the electorate, adding that the mistakes of the past would not be repeated.
Speaking earlier, George, a former deputy national chairman of PDP who is currently on a nationwide campaign for the chairmanship election in December 9, had congratulated the former President on his 60th birthday.
George urged the ex-President, as the leader of the party, to ensure that the PDP emerge stronger from the forthcoming national convention.
George, however, told the former President that the failure to apply the micro-zoning principle to the PDP chairmanship position had caused ripples capable of dividing the party.
He lamented that the party appeared to be drifting as there was no reasonable justification offered by the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee for jettisoning the principle, which was applied to all previous elections to the position.