The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday said the party has no plan to sanction the G-5 governors for their alleged moves to endorse a different candidate other than its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for the 2023 presidential election.

The party said it was premature for anyone to conclude that the purported trip of the G-5 governors to London was to decide which presidential candidate to support for the 2023 poll.

PDP’s National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba said this in a telephone interview with our correspondent last night.

The party’s spokesman said the five governors are aware of their obligations to the PDP, as the party is also aware of its obligations to them.

He dismissed online media reports quoting a member of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) that the G-5 governors would face factions if they carried out their threat to support another presidential candidate other than Atiku.

Ologunagba said: “As a party, we don’t react to emotions. Rather, we respond to facts as they unfold. We don’t preempt people’s actions. So, it is premature for anyone to say that the party will sanction the G-5 governors or anyone else for that matter.

“We don’t see anything wrong in people meeting over issues concerning the party. As a matter of fact, various individuals and groups within the party have been holding meetings here and there, all geared towards the good of the PDP. So, we believe that the aim of the G-5 cannot be different.”

The PDP spokesman maintained that the party hads not foreclosed reconciliation with the G-5 governors, adding that in politics, 24 hours can be crucial in decision-making.

Ologunagba said the media and a section of the public may have been imputing wrong motives for some actions of the five governors.

Also, the Atiku-Okowa Campaign Organisation has boasted that Atiku will win the mandatory 25 per cent votes in more than 24 states in the February 25, 2023 election.

In a statement yesterday, the campaign organisation said it’s incontrovertible that Atiku would win the majority of lawful votes across the country.

The statement by campaign spokesman Kola Ologbondiyan said Atiku would sweep the poll at the first ballot, adding that the PDP candidate would emerge victorious on February 25, 2023.

He said: “Atiku enjoys the solidarity and support of greater majority of Nigerians who are not captured in the indices relied upon by many of the pollsters in their projections on the 2023 presidential election.

“It is incontrovertible that Atiku will win the majority of lawful votes across the country and garner the constitutionally required 25 per cent of votes in more than 24 states of the federation.

“It is evident that the massive traditional voters of the PDP across the polling units, wards, local governments, states and the six geo-political zones are not distracted in their steadfastness to rescue Nigeria …by voting en masse for Atiku.

“Also, this army of traditional voters is unrelenting in mobilising the non-partisan voters as well as the undecided across the country to vote for the PDP presidential candidate.

“Our campaign is, therefore, unfazed, knowing that majority of Nigerians across the nation are in consensus to elect Atiku as the next President of our country, particularly, given his proven capacity, competence, political will and national acceptability to provide leadership at this critical time of our national history.

“The Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organisation, therefore, urges Nigerians to remain united and focused in rallying with Atiku in the collective mission to rescue and rebuild our nation from the misrule of the APC.”