The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has rejected attempts by Governors on its platform to heap all the blame for the party’s dismal performance in the just concluded general elections on the Adamu Mu’azu-led National Working Committee.
The governors were said to have asked Mu’azu and other members of the party’s NWC to resign during their meeting at the Akwa Ibom State Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja on Tuesday.
However, the PDP leadership refused to be the scape goat, insisting that the governors should also share in the blame as their actions contributed largely to the party’s poor performance.
At the meeting summoned by Governor Godswill Akpabio, who is the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, the governors were reported to have accused Mu’azu and the other members of the NWC of working against the party during the general elections.
Apart from being defeated in the presidential election for the first time in 16 years, the ruling party lost its majority control in both chambers of the National Assembly as well as lost majority of the states in the north, which was hitherto known to be its base.
The majority of the states are now under the control of the All Progressives Congress
Reacting to the development, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, absolved the NWC of blame as it did not handle the campaigns or take part in the elections.
He said, “We were not the ones who handled the campaigns and we were not part of the elections. Did the NWC members stand for any election?
“The governors are the ones who are running the party in their states as the party is just a department of the government”.
Metuh alleged that every effort made to instil discipline in many of the party members failed because of the actions of some of the governors.
Metuh also said he was happy to learn that the APC had overruled the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, on the ban placed on Africa Independent Television (AIT) from covering his activities.
“Could we have done that? If we did, they would be asking the NWC members to resign. We need to learn from this. That is what is called party discipline”, he added.
