The Arewa Peoples Patriotic Front on Saturday urged the G-7 governors and the faction of Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, led by Abubakar Kawu Baraje to quit the ruling party if they are dissatisfied with happenings in the party.

The APPFront also urged them to seek legal redress rather than distract President Goodluck Jonathan from executing his electoral mandate.

Speaking at a news conference in Kaduna, National Chairman of the group, Mordecai Sunday Ibrahim, said the one term pact purportedly agreed upon between Mr. Jonathan and PDP governors in 2011 was undemocratic, unconstitutional and therefore null and void.

Ibrahim said, “On the barrage of attacks on the office and the person of President Goodluck Jonathan over his yet to be announced ambition for 2015, it is obvious that majority of those launching these attacks are not democrats while the rest are only out to seek undue relevance.

“It is not democratic or constitutional to ask President Jonathan to drop the ambition, if he desires to contest the 2015 presidential election. It is every Nigerian’s constitutional right to seek election into any office in Nigeria and President Goodluck Jonathan is not an exception.

“To the best of our knowledge, there is no provision in the 1999 constitution as amended that prevents President Goodluck Jonathan and his vice from seeking re-election in 2015. Anyone who is in doubt or feels strongly about this is free to put the provision to test in the courts of our land.

Ibrahim assured the president that majority of the masses in the country are pleased with his performance in office.

“The masses and the many highly respected Nigerians, who are in the majority, are urging him (Jonathan), as their constitutional right, to seek re-election in 2015”, the APPFront chairman said.

“It is not an attribute of a genuine democratic practice, democracy and democrats to deny anyone his or her constitutional right to contest elections. If it actually happened, it was a wicked blackmail for anybody to have asked President Jonathan in 2011 to sign an agreement that he would not contest in 2015.

“Such an agreement therefore, is a nullity because it was signed under duress and without the knowledge and consent of Nigerians. That too is not democratic. Every eligible person is free to test his or her popularity with the electorate who reserve the right to decide his or her fate. Therefore, let the Nigerian voters decide President Jonathan’s fate in 2015 and not Kawu Baraje and the G7 governors”, Ibrahim stated.

-The Nation