Two People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Governors from the South-south region of Nigeria, Godwin Obaseki and Ifeanyi Okowa, today threw their weights behind the planned arrangement by the quadrumvirate of aspirants of Northern extraction for the party to produce its next Presidential candidate by consensus.
This is as former Senate President, Bukola Saraki further drums support for their move, observing that Nigeria is currently unsafe and the cost of living too high.
“Nobody should be shut out. What we need now is the best hand to turn this country around,” Saraki who spoke on behalf of the four PDP Presidential aspirants routing for the emergence of one candidate amongst all the contenders, said while the team embarked on another marathon leg of its consultations to Asaba, Benin, Port Harcourt and Uyo.
The four northern aspirants: Governors Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and Bala Muhammad of Sokoto and Bauchi states; former Senate President, Bukola Saraki and erstwhile Managing Director of the FSB International Bank, Hayatudeen Muhammad had initiated the move last month to rally their counterparts in the party to settle for a single Presidential candidate ahead of the race next year.
Responding to their mission when they called on him at Government House, Benin on Monday, Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state described their Initiative as “a new lease of life” for the party.
He said it is a “a new model for leadership selection where leaders who have some higher aspiration for their people come together and sit” to decide the meaning of the office they seek to their people.
Recalling that in the past the country was sufficiently endowed with resources to share among its disparate parts, he said now that has been depleted, thus the need for all the parts to contribute ingredients to bake a ‘bigger cake for all.’
This strand of thought was also re-echoed by Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state, who received the team in Asaba.
According to him, the trump card being offered by the consensus builders is “truly heartwarming,” as “it will reduce acrimony and help to reposition the PDP as a party that can compete favorably and win,” in 2023.
“This is a step in the right direction. It’ll strengthen us, tends to pull us together,” he noted, praying for divine help for it to succeed.
He encouraged the team to work hard in the consensus building process and unity of the party. “This is the kind of thing that we need at the moment,” he emphasized.
In Asaba, Saraki, who lauded Okowa for his staunch commitment to the success of the PDP nationwide, stated that the consensus arrangement they are proposing “is not just about the issue of the North,” but “about Nigeria.”
“As you know the four of us have been meeting. We have come up with the idea that for the interest of the party, we should come together and look at the consensus arrangement, because we believe that what the country needs today is unity and we cannot be saying that to ourselves and fail to act in the same manner.
“All of us are eminently qualified to rule this country. But we believe that this time only one person will win; and that person needs everybody to make Nigeria better. He needs everybody to fix this country. And, as we have shown, our interests I second to that of the country. And, for somebody who have always shown that as well, that is why we are coming here. This is our first visit to this part of the country.
“We have shared our thoughts with you and you have also given us your own ideas on what we need to do. We want to assure you, once again, that we are very committed to this exercise to ensure that one of us come out. We are committed to this process. We also hope that you ask some of the aspirants and those who are still thinking about it to think about this consensus arrangement, so that at the end of the day, the PDP will be united and we provide leadership to this country. Where the country is today, we need to fix it. We need to tackle the issues of insecurity, unemployment…,” he stressed.
In Benin, the former Senate President said: “Millions of Nigerians are really going through hard times. As a party, we want to show that we are really committed to their interests. We have decided to make our interests secondary. We really want your support in this process. We think this is what will make our party ready for power in 2023, because at the end of the day, it is not a one man thing. We need everybody to turn this country around. That is why we are here.
“There is the need for the PDP to provide that platform to make things better for Nigeria. In doing that, more importantly, we have come to realize that the interest is more paramount than our own individual interests. As such, we have come out to say that we should work out a consensus arrangement, where we don’t all go to the field. And, we want that to go across all other aspirants under the platform of the party. We don’t want to dissipate our energy on just trying to get into power, but on how to make Nigeria better,” he further added.
