All PDP aspirants must go through primaries –Mu’azu

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, has said  the party has no plan to anoint anyone for any elective office in 2015.

Rather, he said each contestant  would  emerge through transparent primaries  to  be conducted by the party.

He said members of the party would also be allowed to choose their leaders without any interference from the national leadership of the party.

Mu’azu spoke at the  Wadata Plaza, Abuja   national secretariat of the party    on Tuesday when he received  a PDP delegation from Akwa Ibom State  led by   Governor  Godswill  Akpabio.

He said, “As democrats, all of us are expected to go home and win elections. Here at the national headquarters of the party, we have no plan to anoint any candidate.

“Politicians must win elections. We are not going to impose anyone on the people.”

Mu’azu also frowned on the defection of members of the ruling party to the opposition All Progressives Congress, saying the PDP would teach  the APC how to poach.

He said it was unfortunate that  some PDP members  allowed themselves to be lured by the APC   instead of finding solutions to their disagreements.

Mu’azu, a  former governor of Bauchi State,  said  the ruling  party had learnt from the  APC and would soon show it(APC)  the  tricks of poaching.

He  said, “We will soon show to the opposition (that though) they are master poachers, we will beat them  to  it.”

The   national chairman  announced that the members of the National Working Committee of the PDP  were  already thinking of how to reposition the party.

Towards this, he said, he would soon convoke a conference of stakeholders of the party where   issues affecting the PDP  would be discussed.

He also said that a committee would soon be put in place to review the manifesto of the party.

According to him, “The world is dynamic, so is our manifesto. I will soon call for a conference that will involve all stakeholders  of  the party to address Nigerians on what the party stands for.”

He appealed to Akpabio, who is also the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, to use his influence to support and encourage the national leadership  in its drive to reposition the party.

The former governor said he was sure that with such support, the party would be able to regain “all our lost grounds and move forward”.

Earlier, Akpabio  had  said that the leadership of the party must know that elections could only be won at the local government level and not Abuja.

He urged Mu’azu and the leadership of the party to know that those running to the party with false hope that they could deliver their states to the party were not sincere.

The governor said, “Whatever you do, elections are won in  LGAs  and not in Abuja. So, if there is any politician here who feels he could win election in Abuja, he should know Akwa Ibom is different from Abuja.

“Our national chairman, one of the things you should watch out for, is a group of politicians    called  Metropolitan politicians, who come here (Abuja)  with stories. They will tell you they can deliver everything; that they own the  states.

“They will tell you to forget the governors; forget  the chairmen of councils and forget everyone because that they can deliver everywhere.

“First look into their history and find out where they have delivered before because some of them cannot deliver even their families.

“We are not the kind of politicians that would come with elders who had been Ambassadors  or  Permanent Representatives to the United Nations. Those ones  do not win elections anywhere; they only win offices  in the UN.”

“For us to win the Presidency, we need the grass roots. Elections are held in the wards, in the villages and in the chapters. Elections are not held in offices, in  the NWC in Wadata Plaza,  neither do we hold elections in the (Presidential) Villa.

“So, those who have access to the Villa and Wadata Plaza  are not  those that will get the votes that will put the  PDP in power in 2015.”

On the vow  by the  five  PDP governors,   who  defected to the APC that they would not return to the ruling party, Akpabio said there was no cause for alarm.

“Most of us are outgoing governors, so whether they come back or not next year, we must leave and in our places others must take over. I think we should concentrate more on those ones who will take over from those governors and ensure that those states remain  PDP states,” he added.

PUNCH