By Dayo Benson, Political Editor & Gbenga Oke

LAGOS — Amid growing speculation that former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida may defect to the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, if the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, denies him its ticket, a founding member of the ANPP, Chief
Harry Akande, has said the party will make its platform available to Babangida if he joins the party.

Akande who was Chairman, Board of Trustees, BoT, of ANPP also predicted that there would be an exodus from the PDP if President Goodluck Jonathan picked PDP presidential ticket, adding however, that it would be a return home for the decampees.

The former presidential aspirant who spoke to Vanguard in an exclusive interview in Lagos yesterday said he would have preferred that President Jonathan would not contest the 2011 presidential election in order to guarantee a free and fair election, even as he said zoning might deny the country the best candidate.

According to him, “let me first of all say that if President Jonathan gets the PDP ticket, then we will see a natural tendency for an exodus of some people to come into our party and we will welcome them with open hands and to lots of them, it will be an homecoming.

“Having said that, we will welcome them. In fact, if I become the chairman of the party, I will personally try to go in and bring all our old members into the party but there is still some rules that guard the emergence of such people so that they can take part in electioneering.”