The Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson, has called on members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to woo back its former leaders, Prof Jerry Gana and Tunde Adeniran who just decamped to another party, the SDP.
Dickson described both Gana, a founding father and Adeniran as “icons of democracy and leaders of progressives politics in the PDP and the country.”
The Governor in a press statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Francis Ottah Agbo, said PDP is a national asset owned by all Nigerians, and not by any individual.
Dickson who is also the Chairman of PDP Reconciliation Committee believed, while the leaders of the party are important stakeholders in the scheme of things, the real stakeholders of PDP are the ordinary Nigerians in whom sovereignty lies.
The Governor said the most rational thing for all PDP stakeholders to do now is to start a process of building consensus and reaching out to players across party lines with the PDP leading the coalition to wrest power from APC in 2019.
The statement reads: “No one Governor, no one Lawmaker or leader of PDP can own PDP or single handedly produce a presidential candidate.”
“Therefore, what is required of PDP leaders now is to work with all parties including those who have left the PDP to produce a credible candidate that is acceptable to the generality of Nigerians on the platform of PDP to defeat the APC in 2019.”
The Governor said his Reconciliation Committee will continuously engage aggrieved party members including those who have left PDP to return to the party, stressing that “we must be together to save our party and country from collapse.”
He said with less than one year to the 2019 general election, time is of essence and the right thing to do now is for all men of good will to come together to challenge the APC.
The Governor also called on PDP members not to lose faith in the party. He said the next election is critical to the survival of democracy and the nation, stressing that history will be unkind to PDP leaders if they fail to lead a coalition to unseat the APC-led Federal Government.