By Eric Elezuo
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former presidential aspirant, Aare Dele Momodu, has written a heartfelt letter to party members, cautioning them against dwelling on the past mistakes made by the party in the presidential primary, thereby limiting the chances of dislodging the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from power.
Momodu made this remarks in a statement he signed himself, and made available to The Boss Newspaper on Monday. The veteran journalist noted that as the oldest party in the country ‘with the requisite experience to tap into in order to reverse our perfidious descent into anarchy’, Nigerians are waiting for the party to retake government and regain the glory.
He appreciated the roles everyone has played in resolving the crisis, and appealed to Governor Nyesom Wike to sheath his sword, and follow the path to reconciliation, just he advised other party members to desist from making inflammatory statements.
Read Momodu’s statement in full:
A LETTER TO PDP MEMBERS
My dear party members, good morning. I woke up thinking about the sad and unfortunate crisis rocking our party. I’m wondering if we’ve not been victims of mass hypnotism. Someone needs to wake us up from this state of somnambulism.
Months after we concluded our Presidential primary, we are still busy fighting and calling ourselves unprintable names, thus forgetting that, once upon a time, we were friends, with shared dreams and aspirations. We all looked forward to how our party would dislodge the APC behemoth that deceived Nigerians with highfalutin promises but failed spectacularly on delivery.
Agreed, costly mistakes were made in our party Presidential primary, some of them avoidable, but we cannot continue to dwell on it, lest we throw the baby away with the bathwater.
Now that we’ve narrowed the principal actors to our National Chairman, Governor Nyesom Wike and our Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, I wish to appeal once again to them to urgently rise above this war of attrition for the sake of long-suffering Nigerians who need our attention desperately. PDP is the oldest party in Nigeria, since 1999, with the requisite experience to tap into in order to reverse our perfidious descent into anarchy.
I salute the courage of Governor Wike in boldly and vociferously letting the world know what went wrong and what should be done moving forward. He should please sheath his sword and allow party machinery fix the rest. I also appeal to our party elders to resist making inflammatory statements that may further escalate the crisis.
Truth is, we can, and should, defeat APC spectacularly in the next election and hopefully form a Government of National Unity in 2023, as suggested by our candidate. Let’s not destroy this opportunity with our own hands.
Nigerians are waiting to see the practical presentations and demonstrations of our manifesto. Majority of the other candidates and members of their parties were at different times members of our party PDP. For every finger they point at us, four others will point back at them.
Time has come for our party to retake the victory and regain the glory.
– CHIEF DELE MOMODU
LAGOS