The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday expressed optimism that President Goodluck Jonathan would emphatically defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, in the March 28 presidential election.
Also, the party said Jonathan is the preferred presidential candidate in the south-west region.
PDP also described the membership card of the party torn by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as an old membership card of the party signed by former National Secretary, Abubakar Baraje, and not the current one signed by National Secretary of the party, Prof. Wale Oladipo.
Addressing journalists on Tuesday in Abuja, the Deputy National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, said: “The president will not be defeated in the election. I am telling you emphatically that we will win the election convincingly.
“In Kano State we lost Kwankwaso but we gained Shekarau who is now the Minister of Education. Through him, we have made tremendous in-road in the North-west and he is going to make the difference.
“We are going to do better in Kano in this election than we did in 2011. President Jonathan in the last few days was in the South-west, where he inaugurated two power projects.
“We are convinced that the west will prefer Jonathan to Buhari any day, any time.
“In Ekiti, Ondo and other South-west states, PDP will certainly make a huge impact and you know that the people of Lagos State are tired of living under one emperor called Bola Tinubu. People are tired of their system, so the South-west will vote massively for Jonathan.”
To further substantiate the optimism that the South-west would massively vote for the re election of President, Secondus said: “You know that the very engine room of government is the Chief of staff, and he is from the west.”
On the crisis rocking the PDP in Ondo State, Secondus said it had been sorted out, stressing that: “It’s just like husband and wife squabbles. Those are none issues. Whichever way you look at it, they are both working for the president.”
He said one of the most important projects for the South-west is the Lagos-Ibadan expressway handed by two major contractors in the country which ongoing.
Secondus admitted that there would be states where the opposition would win, saying: “Of course yes, in terms of governorship, even though we will have majority, there will be some states that the opposition will have. Even before the five governors left, there were some states that the opposition controlled.”
He further refuted that there were issues that plagued governorship primaries in some northern states which held theirs in Abuja.
The deputy national chairman added that PDP primaries were the most transparent compared to those of the opposition parties, noting that one single individual decided who emerged candidates in the APC.
According to Secondus, “You are even talking about some people who gathered, in Rivers State, nobody gathered. The governor just called some people in the government house and gave order that it was Dakuku Peterside who would be the governorship candidate of the party (APC) while Senator Magnus Abe was short changed. They didn’t even allow him to express his ambition. He was suppressed. Governor Chubuike Amaechi handpicked all the APC candidates in the state.”
He dismissed insinuations that some members of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) are not working for President Jonathan, saying: “Forget it; everybody is working for the president. At least I am working here. Part of the APC strategy is to imagine meetings and put it in the press. We don’t go on imaginary journey, we deal with reality. Everybody here is working for the president.”
He denied that the president has ever funded the party, saying: “Yes he has never funded PDP, we fund our party. We raise our money by the dictates of the law. The president has never funded the party. But Amaechi has been funding the APC with Rivers State money. Let Buhari deny it that Amaechi is not using the state government money to fund APC. Let Buhari deny that he has not come to River State to collect ‘Ghana must go bags’.”
On the sponsorship of the Boko Haram sect, Secondus alleged that: “APC is behind Boko Haram because they have never denied it. Now we are winning the war against the insurgents, they have never made any statement. Nigeria and our military are winning the war against Boko Haram insurgents as the President is getting stronger by the day.”
Referring to newspapers advertorials where Amaechi directed that money be approved for APC mobilisation, Secondus said: “This is part of the siphoning of the Rivers State treasury. Let the governor tell us what happened to the $50 million he said he was going to build Justice Karibi Whyte 1,000 bed hospital. He took the money and till today no project, no foundation, nothing has been done on the new site in Port Harcourt where he claims the project will be situated.”
Secondus said on the newspaper advertorials, that: “This is just the tip of the ice berg. We want to show the world that he has been stealing money. He is one of the most corrupt governors in Nigeria. What he is doing is media gymnastics. We have shown evidence that he is funding APC with Rivers State money. Let him go to court we will meet him there.”
He recalled that Governor Mbakwe went to jail for sponsoring Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) when he was the governor of Imo State with N1 million.
While commenting on the former President Olusegun Obasanjo shredding his membership card, the PDP National Secretary Prof. Wale Oladipo, said: “Baba is over 80 years and my mother is around Obasanjo’s age and when you reach that age, you do things that only you can explain. Secondly, you will see that Baba (Obasanjo) did not tear our card. He asked somebody to do the tearing, and I am assuring you that the card that was torn was not the current PDP card.
“The current PDP card is signed by the party National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, and me. So the card he tore was a Barage card, which we were going to destroy anyway. So I think Baba started it.”
He continued: “Lastly, Baba is a very intelligent man. When he was helping us, he knows that a lot of people could have complained that they could have voted for PDP but he (Obasanjo) is there. You know when a big tree exits in a big forest, smaller trees cannot grow. If that big tree leaves, 10 to 20 smaller trees will grow. In politics, one big tree has a vote, while 20 small trees have 20 votes, do the arithmetic. I know that head or tail, it is a win-win situation for PDP.
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