The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has said that its presidential candidate in the forthcoming election, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will be contesting against a semi-literate candidate.

Ostensibly referring to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), the party also said the election would be between Jonathan and   “a military jackboot.”

Buhari, a former head of state, is the only presidential candidate who has a military background .

Section 131(d) of the 1999 Constitution allows anyone with school certificate qualification to contest any elective office in the country.

The PDP, through its National Secretary, Dr. Wale Oladipo, said when some leaders of the PDP in the   Diaspora visited its national secretariat in Abuja on Monday     that there was no way the President would not win the election.

It   said, “The next election is going to be between darkness and light. It is going to be between a cosmopolitan highly-focused Ph.D holder and a semi-literate jackboot.

“Our candidate is a man who believes in integrating the economy of Nigeria into the world economic order. He is   a man who believes that the power sector should continue to be reformed so that we will attain the level of power generation and distribution that is commensurate with our aspiration in terms of industrial development. Nigeria cannot afford to go back. We will continue to move forward.”

The party said having won three presidential elections in which Buhari ran on the platforms of different political parties, there   was no way it would not floor the APC which had decided to field   the former military leader as its     presidential candidate.

Describing the APC as a party not ready to offer alternatives,   the party advised Nigerians to remain with it.

It said, “Even though we are not a perfect party,   our mission is perfect.

“We do not belong to any religious organisation and we don’t belong to any ethnic group. In preparing for the next election, which is not going to be like previous ones because for the first time, the opposition has coupled together a contraption that is called the APC.

“They have passed through the motion and endorsed their perennial candidate. We have beaten him three times, we are going to beat him once again.

“The APC is not a political party that is ready to offer an alternative to the teeming masses of this country. The only agenda they seem to have is to see our back.”

Source – Punch Ng