Build up to unseat Buhari thickens as PDP alliance panel in talks with OBJ, others
As 2019 general election draws near, more political alignments and realignments’ are being consummated with a central effort on the side of opposition to beat the ruling candidate of All Progressive Congress (APC) even as the party on its own, is working tirelessly to remain in government.
The latest move is being made by the Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-West, Dr. Eddy Olafeso.
According to him, “We have swung into action since the Appeal Court verdict which resolved the issues in our favour by acknowledging the authenticity of our executive. We played an active role in the national convention of our party in December. We are currently working hard among our people particularly due to the challenges that we faced after the convention. We decided to take the reconciliation of aggrieved members very seriously”.
“We have been going around in the six states of the South-West to talk to our leaders on the need to ensure peace so that we can collectively plan together towards the 2019 general elections. Going by the current situation of the country, the PDP as the main opposition party, must get its acts together.
While agreeing that the appeal court verdict will be the end of the legal battle considering the fact that nobody has appealed against the verdict at the Supreme Court, he averred that “We are now very stable and working together as a team in the South-West and we are beginning to mobilise our people. The efforts resulted in the mammoth crowd we mobilised during the Ekiti and the Osun zonal rallies that we held recently”.
He revealed that “We have also pledged to re-evaluate the party with a view to serving Nigeria better than we did when we were in government for 16 years. In all sincerity, I want to put it on record that the 16 years of the PDP’s government in Nigeria was not a complete failure. We may fail in some areas, but we actually excelled for our country.
“The (Olusegun) Obasanjo government took over a pariah state but he put in place policies and programmes that jumpstarted the economy while the anti-corruption agencies were established and strengthened to wage war against graft in the public and the private sectors. We also ensured that there was adequate security of lives and property which made Nigeria safer than what we have in the country at the moment. We have now re-strategised to ensure that our second coming will be better than what we achieved when we were in power for 16 years in terms of infrastructure development and purposeful leadership in the three tiers and arms of government because we have the experience, the capacity and people that can actually make the difference. The South-West will surely be a better place for our people when we come back in 2019.
On whether PDP is set to align with any political parties with a view to strengthen the PDP for the 2019 general elections, he answered yes, saying “we are going into a very strong alliance. We already have a committee saddled with the responsibility of reaching out to all other parties with a view to having an alliance that we can use to confront the APC. We are still pursuing this on daily basis. We are very optimistic that other parties will also work with us to defeat the current government in the country”.
“At this moment, our people are still meeting with the former president. However, the truth is that Obasanjo is not the focus. His opinion is taken very seriously but the focus is our nation. So, we are not going to spend our entire energy in talking to one individual when the entire 180 million Nigerians are still waiting for the PDP to move the nation forward.
Continuing, Olafeso disclosed that on the production of PDP presidential candidate in conjunction with other parties involved in the ongoing alliance will be the magic wand.
He assured that “We are communicating and networking. The media will know the outcome at the appropriate time. Our concern is to quickly redeem Nigeria from this drift of terrible state of insecurity, backward economic development and dangerous state of unemployment affecting the youth of this country”.
