Adedoja Relives PDP National Chairmanship Ambition, Visits PDI

Ademola Babalola in Ibadan

A frontline aspirant to the national chairmanship of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Professor Taoheed Adedoja, is not leaving any stone unturned in his determination to occupy the seat.

Already, Adedoja, a former Minister for Sports and Special Duties under Goodluck Jonathan administration, is looking inwards as part of the efforts to rejig and reposition the party for the task of a post-2015 bounce-back.

He was on a courtesy visit to the Abuja headquarters of one of the constitutional organs of the PDP, the People’s Democratic Institute, PDI, recently.

The visit, he said, was part of his nationwide consultation with individual and institutional stakeholders within the PDP family in what he described as his “desire to see the total party machinery steaming again and the party restored to its place of prominence within the Nigerian polity” in the nearest future.

Adedoja told his visitor, Dr Lanre Adebayo, the Director General of the institute, of his intention to appropriately spruce the institute up into a vibrant think-tank that will provide necessary intellectual support and guide for all economic, social and foreign policies of PDP governments at all levels in the country.

He promised that as soon as he gets into office as National Chairman of PDP, he would have “the institute affiliated to similar policy development institutes all over the world as part of the repositioning effort of the party in a way to optimize the enormous resources that abound in the party”.

Adebayo commended him for his rare foresight in acknowledging the utility potential of an important stakeholder-institution like PDI at this critical time in the party’s history.

He said the institute was established in year 2000 as the intellectual and resource organ of the PDP for the formulation of policies for the party.