President Muhammadu Buhari and the governing party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have put spanners in the works of former President Goodluck Jonathan in his bid to return to Aso Rock in 2023.

The President, according to Presidency sources, has distanced himself from the Jonathan project.

Also, the APC has declared that Jonathan is not a member of the ruling party and not eligible to contest for the presidency.

Despite procuring N100 million Expression of Interest and Nomination forms to contest for the presidential ticket of APC, Jonathan has been excluded from the screening.

There have been subterranean moves by some forces within and outside the Villa to foist Jonathan on APC as a consensus candidate.

A North-West governor was the arrowhead of the plot.

The Star learnt that the governor was positioning himself for the vice presidential slot.

But sources in the Presidency said Buhari is not part of the scheme and “would not support such arrangement”.

“Jonathan is certainly not in the picture at all and the mentioning of his name has been invoking feelings of absurdity and ridicule in the Villa.

“Don’t forget that during a public interview earlier this year, a journalist asked the president to use one word to describe the PDP, he instantly said ‘failure.’ How then would the same person who strongly feels that way would then be contemplating supporting the same PDP candidate he roundly defeated?” a presidential source said.

Meanwhile, National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the APC, Salihu Lukman, has said that Jonathan is not qualified to emerge as presidential candidate of the ruling party in 2023.

He said: “There are clear guidelines in terms of how individual members of the party are qualified to emerge as the candidate of the party.

“First, through the sale of nomination forms. Assuming Jonathan claimed to be a member of the party, he has not bought the forms to the best of our knowledge. How do you come from the back door?

“Second, as far as our memory can recall, the party became popular based on the campaign against the bad governance of Jonathan and nothing has changed that we can now say has qualified him to emerge as the arrowhead of our campaign in 2023.

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“As far as I am concerned, these two reasons disqualified Jonathan from even aspiring to become the candidate of the party. I don’t know where he is coming from.

“Unfortunately, in this country, there is the mentality that everything is possible, but it must be clearly stated that as far as the leadership of the party is concerned, the person of Jonathan can’t be under consideration.”

When asked if Jonathan submitted his forms, Lukman said: “I am waiting for anybody to present evidence that a form has been submitted for Jonathan before the deadline for submission. I am waiting to see such evidence.

“You know, such a form will contain all details including the membership details of Jonathan. That I have not seen. Maybe somebody is hiding his form somewhere else. I am not aware Jonathan bought the nomination form.”

The NWC member also spoke on a level playing field for all the presidential aspirants.

According to him, “As far the leadership of APC is concerned and I am a member of that leadership, imposition is not going to be possible.

“As far as the majority, indeed all of us (NWC) are concerned, everybody that bought the nomination form will be given a level playing field, as long as such a person is qualified.

“The campaign leading to the emergence of the candidate and the eventual trend of delegates to the convention will be driven based on the aspiration of bringing out somebody that is acceptable to Nigerians on the basis of which the party can win. It is not on the basis of individual scheming.”

The Star