TheCitizen – It's all about you Nigeria's leading online newspaper
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said it was almost concluding discussions with more state governors and members of the National Assembly elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of their defection to the PDP.
The party said it had already concluded discussions with six APC governors and 27 APC members in the National Assembly, who it said had also done their consultations and secured the mandates of their constituents to move to the PDP ahead of the 2019 general elections.
The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement, in Abuja, on Wednesday, that the party had verified that discussions on control of party structures in the affected states and senatorial zones had also reached an advanced stage and would be completed in a couple of weeks after which the governors and lawmakers would announce their defection to the PDP.
Ologbondiyan said that the affected lawmakers had promised to defect from the ruling party to the PDP as soon as the two chambers of the National Assembly resumed sitting.
He said, “However, in line with decisions reached at the discussions, the members of the National Assembly defecting to the PDP will cross-carpet at the reconvening of the session in the two chambers, which will increase the PDP majority in both chambers.
“The party wishes to assure its members that all grey areas of the agreement, including issues of waivers and accommodation for participation in primaries, are being smoothened out by the former Governor Liyel Imoke-led PDP Contact and Integration Committee, which has been galvanising our alliances among stakeholders across other parties, including those from the APC.
“The PDP also commends the spirit of tolerance, dialogue, accommodation and oneness of purpose that pervades the alliance among members.”
He expressed the readiness of the PDP to take back power at the centre, as well as in states like Plateau, Niger, Adamawa, Kano, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Kebbi, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Jigawa, Zamfara, Imo, and Edo, which he called the party’s traditional states.
He also listed states like Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Lagos in the South-West as other states he said the PDP would take control of.
He, therefore, charged members of the party and supporters to remain steadfast and be “wary of the gimmicks of the deflated APC, which has resorted to sponsoring spurious publications filled with deceptions, fabrications and lies against our party.”
