Stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Tuesday, engaged one another in a blame game over the lingering crisis in the party.
While the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Ibrahim Abdullahi blamed the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, for the crisis in the party, Ugochinyere blamed the Acting National Chairman, Amb. Umar Damagum.
Narrating the ordeal in PDP, Ugochinyere said Damagum’s presence as acting chairman of the party is causing serious problem for the party.
Speaking at a conference, titled: “Fix PDP To Fix Nigeria,” Ugochinyere regretted that the opposition party was not effectively playing its role with a view to putting the ruling government on the right path.
He said,”We are not yet in that level to even ask ourselves whether we are playing an opposition role. Because we are not yet in opposition.
“We seem to be working for different people and different interests now. But we need to come back to say, realise that we are opposition and restructure ourselves along that opposition line. The way you have opposition in Senegal, in Ghana, in other parts of West Africa.
“We are not even up to 10% as an opposition political party. And Nigeria used to be the hotbed of African political activism. But suddenly,the PDP cannot play that role as opposition.
“So we need to ask ourselves, ‘why are we not playing that role as an opposition political party? Because those things have happened before we came in and it keeps happening. So let’s leave what happened in the past or the mistakes some of our founding fathers made. But you will also agree that they laid enough foundation for us.
“The standard we are operating today is painful, embarrassing and insulting. It is nothing near what our founding fathers had, even though they had their own shortfall. I listened to the member of NWC speak passionately about how they inherited the challenges.
“But what I would ask him is, ‘are you proud the way your own NWC is running now? Are you going to, because there are people who created these problems for you, those who are still creating that problem, is that a justification? Don’t you have your own sense of duty and responsibility to now say, let’s change the way these things are happening? Can’t you just say, I want this to change?
“The NWC is like a judge, not only doing justice, but you must be seen to be doing justice. If you look at some of the things that have happened, yes, we lost the election, we lost funding, we started surviving from governors or individual stakeholders and so on and so forth. But the biggest problem your own NWC is facing today, which is also affecting our role as an opposition party.
“We have been so decimated that just a few days, Peter Obi left the level, and is having the same 12 states with us. We should agree that we failed. We completely failed. If they are the ones that took away from him, in that case he had even the highest number of states in that election. So that should tell us that the new generation is moving away from us.
“When I was coming, I saw Fix PDP to Fix Nigeria. Very fantastic. But before you fix PDP, you have to fix everything that is internal. And that starts with the issue of leadership struggle. We can’t wave it aside. And let me tell you, as long as we don’t resolve these issues, the people out there are just laughing at us.
“Like basic constitutional responsibility, Article 45 and 47, a tradition that we have maintained over the years. We find it difficult to speak the truth. What is Damagum still doing? And I ask you here now, as the national chairman of the party, go in by that tradition.
“But then what are we doing? What are we not doing as a group to rescue the party? So the point I’m trying to make here is that Article 47, 45 was very clear that when a vacancy occurs, a party NEC picks another person from that zone or area where the former occupants originated. And you have become acting chairman by virtue of 45. Call a NEC meeting to appoint an acting chairman. Is that difficult for somebody, who wants Nigeria to take him serious? And that inability to do that is what brought this round of crisis again. And let me say this, you people know what you are doing.”
While blaming Atiku for the problems facing the party, Abdullahi said that the present NWC inherited the problems in the party.
He emphasized that contrary to institution in some quarters,the NWC led by Damagum is not in the pocket of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory,Nyesom Wike, adding that Atiku should be blamed.
He said Atiku succeeded in foisted a worse government on the nation in the person of Muhammadu Buhari, adding, “we inherited the problems we are facing today. We are not in the pocket of Wike. Atiku Abubakar foisted the worse government led by the person of Buhari on us.
(Vanguard)
Leave a Reply