National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Wednesday, expressed shock at the defection of five out of seven aggrieved governors on the platform of the party to the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, stating that the governors’ went too far with their action.
According to Tukur, the decision came as a surprise in view of the fact that the peace process initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan was still ongoing and expressed the hope that the governors would retrace their steps as the PDP never takes delight in losing its key members to the opposition.
The PDP national chairman, who is currently in China on the invitation of the government of the Peoples Republic of China, however, affirmed that the governors exercised their fundamental rights to freedom of association as guaranteed by the law.
These views form part of Tukur’s statement, yesterday which said: “There is always a limit to demonstration of anger. If anger can cause you to pack all your bags and loads and then move into the home of your arch opponents, that to me is an anger so misdirected and it is unfortunate.
“We cannot ask anyone not to leave the party if he so decided. After all soldiers go, soldiers come. If anyone leaves the PDP, many more people will join, it happens every time. All the same, I seize this opportunity to say to others who want to remain to stay back and join the process of re-building and reforming PDP”.
The PDP chairman, who insisted that the recent turn of events would not affect ongoing reforms within the party and the desire by the leadership under his watch to entrench party supremacy, discipline and cohesion, said: “I am currently in China to study some modern day models of development that China can offer on party organization and good governance. I have taken note of so many things here. We will adopt the good ones to complement the reform process that is ongoing in PDP.
“We cannot do it alone. We need the cooperation of the party and the cooperation of every member so that we can leave the primitive stage we always find ourselves and then link up with modernity.
“What we are saying is let us come together as a party to promote the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan who we elected to lead us in Nigeria.
“Let us put behind us those successions of crises and bickerings so that the President and leaders of the party could concentrate on governance and delivery of the dividends of democracy to all”.
