A former Minister of Police Affairs and governorship candidate under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Yobe State in 2007, Alhaji Adamu Maina Waziri has stated that the party will capitalize on the under-performance of the All Progressives Congress, APC-led administration in its bid to regain power in 2019.
The PDP BoT member disclosed this in an interview with the Sun newspaper, where he admitted that the party had made some serious mistakes that led to its defeat in the 2015 general elections, adding that for the PDP or any party to rise up to the APC in 2019 with President Muhammadu Buhari in the saddle, they must come with clean hands.
He said, “First the PDP must be led by people of honour and integrity.
“Secondly, the candidate of the PDP must be somebody who should stand up with credentials that are same with the current President.
“Thirdly, the party and its candidate must understand that money cannot replace credibility. It cannot replace good behaviour.
“If it were on account of money alone, PDP would not have lost the election. People should not be saying that we need a national chairman who is a money bag. We need somebody with integrity.
“We need somebody who is intelligent, well lettered and who will be in a position to confront the leadership of the APC on equal terms.
“We will not be sending our worst eleven. Many leaders of PDP in Wadata plaza have been guests of EFCC. In a situation where the world is expecting Nigeria to redeem itself from the abyss of corruption it has found itself, we should put forward people who are credible to run the party.”
The former minister of state for Agriculture claimed that some of the party members, including him, spoke against Jonathan’s candidature when some elders from the region openly urged and campaigned for the former President in the last election.
He added, “There are always two sides to the coin. We had people who campaigned for Jonathan and we lost.
“Those people are now saying, yes, we made a mistake. We had people who didn’t campaign for Jonathan and we lost.”
Waziri maintained that the PDP must take responsibility for what has happened, adding that there is no need living in self-denial.
“PDP should come to terms with its past misdeeds and offer the necessary apologies and entreaties to Nigerians.
“At the end of the day, no matter what you do, you are a human being, you are bound to make mistakes.”
He said the party must accept that mistakes were made and seek measures to amend them by not falling into traps.
Waziri said that having lost the presidency and two-third of states in the last elections the party is “hopelessly weak,” but added that there is hope of doing better in 2019 than it performed in 2015.
He added, “Possibly, if the APC will continue the way it is doing, we will win the presidency or we will give them a fight for their money.”
He further explained that there are some mistakes the incumbent APC-led government is making now that will easily bring the PDP back in power, saying that the 2016 budget was one of those mistakes.
According to him, “The budget is one of them. We are not talking of the delay of the budget but the controversy that has dogged it which ought not to be exhibited by a party that has an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly.
“Secondly, the economy has not been favourable. Every Nigerian knows that his or her standard of living was better in 2015 than as it is in 2016. I am not listing out the reasons.
“Thirdly, there is no cohesion in the APC. Unfortunately, there is also lack of cohesion in the PDP.
“Fourthly, the APC through President Buhari has set a bar of integrity. We must reach that bar to be a competitor to the APC.”
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