PDP: We Didn’t Lose 2015 Poll Due to Obasanjo, Atiku’s Exit

• Party targets 30 states in 2019
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the exit of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, his erstwhile deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and some governors elected on the platform of the party to the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not responsible for its loss of the 2015 presidential election.

Rather, the party said despite their exit, PDP still remains a viable political option for Nigerians to restore the country to path of glory.

The National Organising Secretary of the National Caretaker Committee (NCC) of the party, Senator Abdul Ningi, who stated this on Tuesday when he issued a nomination form to an aspirant for the party’s ticket for the November 18 Anambra State governorship election, Dr. Alex Obiogbolu, said the PDP has risen from the ashes of the defeat and was now ready to return to power in 2019.

“We said one of our cardinal principles is that PDP is not a one-man party. This party has individuals that left beginning with Obasanjo, Atiku, and President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died.
“That has been our plight. This party can do without a single individual or groups of individuals. Five of our governors left, we were wounded but not defeated, and we are rising up from ashes of those who have left,” Ningi boasted.

On the recent leadership crisis in the party, Ningi said it has strengthened the PDP as it had given it an opportunity to do a sober reflection.

“We are also happy that the crisis has given us the opportunity to look inwards, to look at mistakes, look at where we went wrong and try to make amends.

“This party has also left it doors open for those who have left to come back because PDP is their natural turf. Alot of them have discovered that where it matters is this party,” he stated.
The spokesperson of the caretaker committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, said PDP would win 30 states in the 2019 governorship elections.

The party has however, lowered its governorship nomination form from N10 million to N5 million but still retained the expression of interest form (EOI) at a million naira.

Alex became the first to pick the nomination form yesterday, assuring the party that he would win the November 18 governorship election if he is given the PDP ticket.