AT the peak of political parties’ primaries to pick their candidates, ahead of next year’s general elections, former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, has sounded a cautioned over growing calls to drag former President, Goodluck Jonathan, into the political contest, saying is a symptom of national frustration, rather than serious political solution.
In a Facebook post, Lamido argued that renewed calls for Jonathan’s comeback was due to a deepening sense of hopelessness in Nigeria’s political space, arguing that the country’s current political environment has become so disillusioning that citizens are now reaching for symbolic figures, not structural answers.
The former governor said dragging Jonathan back into frontline politics would amount to exposing a former head of state, who currently enjoys global respect as a statesman, to a “murky arena” dominated by power struggles, rather than ideology or national vision.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain noted that Jonathan’s position as a former President places him in a rare category of global elder statesmen, whose influence is best preserved outside partisan contestation, saying the current political climate is too fragmented and self-serving to justify emotional calls for a comeback.
While acknowledging public yearning for stronger leadership, Lamido insisted that Nigeria’s current crisis cannot be solved by “personality returns,” but through rebuilding institutions, restoring political discipline and redefining party ideology beyond mere power acquisition.
Calls for Jonathan to once more take a shot at the presidency sounded louder as the elections approached, and there are reports that he may have heeded the calls by picking the necessary forms to contest from the Taminu Turaki faction of the party, which Lamido dragged to court, a development that further polarised the party.
Recall that the Suupreme Court voided the party’s national convention in Ibadan, Oyo State, last year, that produced Turaki as national chairman, because it was in disobedience of a subsisting lower court order stopping it, based on the suit filed by Lamido.
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