POLITICS
I will Meet Expectations of PDP, Nigerians – Atiku
The Presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has pledged that he would meet the expectations of the party and Nigerians when elected president in 2023.
Abubakar made the promise during his remarks at the PDP 97 National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja on Thursday.
He appreciated the NEC members for their support during the party’s convention in May where he emerged as the presidential candidate of the PDP.
“I cannot thank you enough. My promise is that I will meet your expectations and the expectations of Nigerians.
“Let me also use this opportunity to thank our outgoing BoT Chairman for his services and sense of patriotism for our great party,” Abubakar said.
The former vice president also expressed his commitment to ensuring that the internal crisis in the party was resolved.
“Many speakers have alluded to family disagreement, family disagreements are normal even in normal families as well as political families.
“But what I can assure you is that we are determined to resolve those issues internally. There are not really fundamental disagreements, it is normal,” Abubakar said.
He appealed to all party members to ensure that it’s challenges were resolved internally within the provisions of the party’s constitution.
“As a political party we have our constitution, our rules and our regulations.
“I want to urge that no matter the level of disagreement, it should be resolved within our constitution, within our rules, within our regulations.
“We have all what it takes to guide us to continue to nurture this political party, to provide a platform for all Nigerians to realize their collective and individual aspirations.
“Therefore, I wish to appeal to all members of our party to make sure that all our disagreements are resolved internally,” Abubakar said.
In his remarks, the former President of the Senate and acting Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Sen. Adolphus Wabara urged party members to always control their emotions and ensure disagreements within the party were addressed internally.
“The PDP has an inbuilt mechanism to solve problems. We have done it several times. When people expect us to implode, that is when we become very glorious.
“I want to advise us that we should always deprive ourselves in-house no matter what the anger is; let us deprive ourselves in-house rather than playing to the gallery.
“We should watch and control our utterances because by and large, only God knows tomorrow.
“Because once you voice out something, it is always difficult for you to pick back what you voice out.
“My advice to use is that we should be mature enough to control our temper,” Wabara said.
Earlier, the party’s National Chairman, Sen. Iyorchia Ayu, said he was happy that PDP is united and Nigerians were enthusiastic about the party in spite of the impression being created by some people.
“I am happy that the Nigerian people are interested in our party. I am interested not because we disagree among ourselves, but in our capacity to deliver and when we take over power.
“We have done it before and I believe that people will also give us their mandates.”
Ayu urged the party to focus on the issues that worried Nigerians including issues of security, education, economy, health, national infrastructure that will help the country to move forward.
On his part, the Chairman, PDP Governors Forum, Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, said that the forum was working to address the misunderstanding in the party.
He pledged that PDP governors would continue delivery of dividends of democracy to Nigerians.
Tambuwal commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and President Muhammadu Buhari for improving of the country electoral system, urging them to sustain it to make 2023 general elections free and credible.
“We must as people of goodwill, as believers and democracy encouraged President Buhari, indeed INEC and all security agencies to ensure that we have free, fair, transparent election in 2023.
“In any case, that was what PDP presided over in 2015. So it’s only an improvement on the legacy of the PDP if that is done by the APC administration,” Tambuwal said.
The Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Chukwuka Utazi, said that the party Caucus in the National Assembly was united and indivisible.
Utazi, who pledged their support to the party in the 2023 general elections, urged all to work together for the success of the party.(NAN)
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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