2027: Jonathan ineligible, NDC’s zoning is political 419 — Keyamo

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Olorogun Festus Keyamo, SAN, has launched a stinging attack on the National Democratic Coalition’s NDC decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, dismissing it as a hollow political gimmick designed to deceive Nigerians. 

This was as he also declared that former President Goodluck Jonathan remains constitutionally barred from seeking the presidency.

Keyamo, who spoke in an interview with Vanguard on Sunday, left no room for ambiguity on either matter, describing the NDC’s zoning resolution as an insult on the sensibilities of Nigerians.

The minister’s remarks cast serious doubt on the credibility of the party’s zoning arrangement ahead of the 2027 general elections.

“The decision of NDC is an insult on the sensibilities of Nigerians; it is nothing but political 419. So, what happens if Peter Obi changes party, assuming he wins, or as leader of the NDC he gets the NEC of the party to reverse the decision if in the unlikely event he wins? This is just a joke taken too far,” the minister said.

Keyamo questioned the enforceability of the NDC’s position, arguing that any such internal party resolution could be reversed at will by its own leadership, rendering it worthless as a guarantee to voters.

On Jonathan, Keyamo was equally blunt, insisting that the former president’s reported presidential ambition was headed for a dead end in court.

The minister’s remarks referenced the factional crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, pointing out that Jonathan’s reported association with the Turaki Umar faction — a faction he argued has no legal standing to field candidates — compounded what he described as an already hopeless constitutional situation for the former president.

“Jonathan is not constitutionally eligible to run — it is as simple as that. The Supreme Court will most likely disqualify him. And I think he knows because they are dangling the ticket of the PDP that does not exist in law before him — the Turaki-led PDP that cannot field candidates. That is double tragedy for him. But I think they just want to participate in an academic exercise,” he said.

Jonathan served two oaths of office — completing the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s term from 2010 to 2011, then winning a full term from 2011 to 2015 — a tenure profile that legal analysts have long argued renders him ineligible for another presidential run under the two-term limit enshrined in the 1999 Constitution