A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and former member, Atiku Abubakar 2023 Presidential Campaign Committee, PCC, Adetokunbo Pearse, has urged the party to ensure that a southerner emerges as its presidential candidate in 2027.

Pearse gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Lagos on Sunday.

According to him, a northern presidential candidate might not be good for the fortune of the party in the next presidential election.

“The national opinion now, the tendency, the feeling generally, is that the PDP should field a southerner for president in 2027. That is the general feeling.

“We need somebody from the South to complete these four years, to complete the eight years of southern presidency, so that we can rescue Nigeria.

“That is the feeling of Nigerians now. Therefore, I will go with the idea that it is not strategic, it is not in our best interest to say we are supporting a northerner for president.” Pearse said.

The party chieftain reiterated that PDP did not need any merger with another political party to win.

He also ruled out the possibility of major opposition parties, including the Labour Party, New Nigeria People’s Party, and PDP, coming together to challenge the APC in 2027.

According to him, there has not been a history of successful political mergers in the country.

“An alliance in our politics, even abroad, you can see it’s very difficult because it is hard for the competing groups and leaders to give way for one or the other.

“It is not easy, it is not easy, and it is not even realistic. We tried it before and I have a lot of experience with this.

“It is not possible for PDP to go into any alliance in 2027. I personally think it is very unlikely,” he added.

According to him, the LP and NNPP will not bring much to the table as both parties only produced one governor each in the last general elections.

Pearse said that PDP would win the 2027 presidential election, given the number of governors and National Assembly members it has ,with a southern candidate.

“We just need to strengthen our party. We need to reach out to our members that have left the party.

“If they come back to the party, even if 60 per cent of them come back to the party, we win the next election.

“We win the next election because this last 2023 election was very close. We have 12 governors. We have about 40 per cent of the National Assembly, “he said.

According to him, PDP has 12 states already, all it needs to win are few states to dislodge APC.

Pearse said that all that PDP needed was to look out for party leaders “who had one astray “,especially to the Labour Party.

“They include our youth members who went to support Labour. And we have been doing that, by the way, since the end of the last election.

“We have been working on that, making sure we bring our people back, reaching out to them, talking to them. We are negotiating how we are going to do it.

“So, all we need to do is to work within our structures, negotiate, reconcile all our people and we will win the next election,” he said.

Pearse said that the former ruling party lost the 2023 general elections because the party went into the election with a divided house over zoning.

“The party went astray last time because they did not clarify the constitutional tenets that said that if the national chairman comes from the north, the presidential candidate cannot also come from the north.

“Since we normally elect the national chairman before the presidential candidate, it was expected that the national chairman (Dr Iyorchia Ayu) would gracefully step down once a northerner had emerged for president.Tbat did not happen.

“That was the beginning of our problems. It was a divided house that lost that election.

“The Presidential Candidate, Vice President Atiku Abubakar also didn’t do enough to solve the problem.We are not going to allow it to happen now,” he said.

2027: Don’t field northern presidential candidate – Ex-Atiku campaigner tells PDP