Following its defeat at the March 28 presidential election and ahead of the 2019 presidential election, the PDP leadership disclosed on Friday, December 18, that it has concluded arrangements to meet its founding fathers next year and beg them for forgiveness as part of moves to take the party to a greater height.
According to The Vanguard, there are moves by the PDP to woo the former military president Ibrahim Babangida, the former vice president Atiku Abubakar, the ex-minister of finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, and Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, amongst others.
Sources reveal that the plan is to plead with them even if some of them may not want to play very active roles, to have them continue to play such fatherly roles as it was in the past, which would be counted a step towards success.
The party’s board of trustees (BOT)’s secretary, Senator Walid Jibrin, noted that there are many party faithful who are aggrieved, hence a need to make peace.
He said: “As the conscience of the party, we (the BOT) are trying to dialogue with the aggrieved people, we are ready to dialogue with the founding fathers of this party, immediately after our meeting on the 14th of January and having come with a new chairman, we are going round this nation, we are going first to discuss with our founding fathers, all those who are within and those who have left this party and try to lure them and bring them back to the party because we have all the opportunities now to win again all the elections up to 2019.”
Jubril further stressed that the board has not penciled down anybody to select as the new substantive chairman.
However, he explained that if the current acting chairman, Alhaji Haliru Bello, wants the position, he is free to contest. He added: “The procedure of electing a new chairman will be discussed on the 14th of January. If Bello wants to contest he is so much welcome to contest”.
Commenting on the sacking of the PDP acting national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, by an Abuja high court, the BOT secretary said: “We have decided that all legal matters will be looked at come January 14, so we are not in a hurry to discuss any legal matter now. However, by January 14, there are many of them, they will be looked at, as to bring sanity to the PDP”.
In a recent interview with journalists, Jubril warned against the stigmatization of the PDP as a party mainly for corrupt people. He stressed that it is wrong for anyone to say everybody in the PDP is corrupt.
Expressing support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, the BOT chairman noted that the PDP does not condone corruption in any form. He added that it is the party’s belief that anyone found guilty of corruption should be dealt with according to the laws of the land.
