Former President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday declared that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) remains the biggest and strongest party in Nigeria.
Jonathan, who was defeated in 2015 by incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, ending PDP’s 16-year rule at the centre, spoke when he received a delegation of the PDP Strategy Review and Inter-party Committee, which visited him at his private residence in Abuja.
Despite fraction in the party, the 59-year-old, who is the first sitting Nigerian President to lose an election, said the PDP would bounce back in 2019.
He said the loss to the All Progressives Congress (APC) was a minor setback which he said did not diminish the party.
“The PDP is still the biggest and the strongest party. Irrespective of what happened in the 2015 general elections,” he told his guests.
“Yes, we lost the presidential election but that doesn’t diminish us. Every other party still knows that the PDP is a leading party.
“Losing the Presidency is something temporary. We should be able to get that position back as long as we are able to get our act together. I am happy that you people are working towards that.”
The Strategy Committee, headed by a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, also presented its report to two former founding members of the party.
They are a former National Chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, and a former Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Tony Anenih.
In his remarks, Tukur lambasted those defecting from the PDP to the APC on the perceived promise of a better future, likening them to those running to Europe for a better future that he said was unpredictable.
He expressed happiness that the PDP was rebranding and trying to return power to the people, adding that there was no place in the country “where you do not find a member of our party.”
Anenih, on his part, blamed selfishness among some party leaders for the state of the PDP today. He said the party could have gone beyond its present status but for the selfishness of some party leaders.
He, however, charged the party leadership to engage in constructive criticism.
Gana, while addressing the elder statesmen, at the separate visits, alleged that INEC had become a tool in the hands of the APC.
