Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has attributed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s loss in the 2023 presidential election to the party’s failure to zone the ticket to southern Nigeria.

The governor spoke on Thursday when he was featured as a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today,’ days after the party zoned its presidential ticket to the southern region of the country for the 2027 elections.

“Life is always a learning process. When we did it [throwing the ticket open] in 2023, it was not a pleasant experience, and that was why we lost, and I discovered to my surprise that the presidency is a consensus phenomenon. You cannot impose yourself on anybody or any group,” the governor, who is the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, said.

In the lead-up to that election, the PDP threw the ticket open with ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, flying the party’s flag in a poll won by Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

That decision from the PDP created ripples in the opposition party with the G-5, a group of five governors led by the ex-governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who faulted the move and later worked against the party in the presidential election.

Wike, who lost to Atiku in the party’s presidential primary, believed it was an injustice to throw the PDP ticket open, citing Nigeria’s unwritten power-sharing deal between the northern and southern regions.

The PDP chieftain argued that since ex-President Muhammadu Buhari was from the north and had completed his eight-year constitutionally allowed term, power should have returned to the south.

Aggrieved by PDP’s decision, Wike backed Tinubu of the APC, who later appointed him as the Minister of the FCT upon assumption of office.

To avoid a similar fallout, the PDP has now zoned its presidential ticket to the south — the region where President Tinubu hails from.

It cited the need for equity and the correction of the PDP’s mistake in the last election, a decision Governor Mohammed said will strengthen the party’s chances in the 2027 election.

“When my party decided that we would zone this [ticket] to the south, I had no qualms because I knew it was for the common good and not about personal interest,” the governor from the northern region, who had earlier indicated interest in the presidency in 2027, said on the current affairs show. “We have learnt our lessons from the mistakes we made in the past.”

The former FCT minister said since Tinubu is about to finish his first term, the PDP needs somebody “strong or stronger than him from the south to give him a fight for his life because the government of the day is not working very well”. (Channels TV)