APPARENTLY prompted by the need to maintain its status as the nation's ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has begun reconciliation with some aggrieved members of the party.
The party held a South-South zonal executive committee meeting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, while the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, held a similar peace parley with the South-West zone last Friday.
The South-South leaders meeting was attended by Chairman Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors' Forum, Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, his Rivers and Delta States counterparts, Chibuike Amaechi and Emmanuel Uduaghan, Tukur, Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba and hundreds of party stalwarts in the zone.
Addressing the party faithful, Tukur acknowledged that the disagreements among members of the party were not without solutions. He assured that the party would reconcile its differences and win the forthcoming general elections.
He insisted that there would be no more imposition of candidates on the party and that every member ranging from the president to the least person would be entitled to only one vote.
According to him, the essence of this is to entrench internal democracy and level-playing field for all.
Also speaking at the meeting, Akpabio said irrespective of the recent mergers of some opposition parties, President Goodluck Jonathan will be re-elected in 2015.
He said all the party needed was total cohesion and reconciliation of willing aggrieved members to take over the 36 states and 774 local councils of the country by 2015.
Akpabio said since the formation of the PDP Governors' Forum, the opposition parties had been in disarray and confused over which name to adopt.
Though he reiterated that no PDP governor would defect to any opposition party, he however advocated the empowerment of party supporters and the need to ensure party cohesion.
Akpabio explained that President Jonathan was equal to the task of winning the 2015 election and the PDP taking full control of the 36 states in the country. He enjoined governors in the South-South to close ranks and support the President to realise his second term ambition. He said his support for the President does not border on sycophancy but on the fact that Jonathan hails from the South-South.
He added: "There is always the hand of God in leadership. You cannot be a good leader if you cannot be a good follower...the South-South must come together to support their own son", he said.
Governor Uduaghan, who spoke on behalf of governors of the zone, assured the national chairman that his colleagues would continue to ensure that the zone remained the stronghold of the PDP. But he cautioned that the party must make concerted efforts to resolve all the issues threatening its unity.
The Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues in the zone, tasked the national chairman to wade into the crisis bedevilling the state PDP executive council. He warned that except the national chairman intervened, the PDP risked losing the next local council election in the state.
In the same vein, immediate past Senate Leader, Teslim Folarin, has described Tukur's visit to the zone for a meeting with stakeholders as the necessary catalyst to send the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) packing from the zone in 2015.
Tukur had led other members of the National Working Committee (NWC) to the one-day meeting in Ibadan, where stalwarts of the party from the zone gathered to meet him.
Reacting to the meeting, Folarin who was among the party dignitaries from Oyo State at the meeting told reporters in Ibadan that the parley afforded the various groups within the party to table their grievances.
The former Senate Leader noted that Tukur had through the visit and his manner of approach rekindled everybody's hope in the party, stressing that "the approach was soothing to everybody and we all left the venue of the meeting more than convinced that we will be disappointing the amiable national chairman if we fail to work in unity.
The Guardian
There are a lot of things going on right now in that political party. They really need to sort themeselves out