President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday passed a damning verdict on members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who dumped the party to join the victorious All Progressives Congress (APC), saying they will return to the defeated party with empty stomachs.
“These people who are running – some of them are already carpet-crossing, they will come back with empty stomachs because they (APC) would touch the primary members of their party before they would look at you, the peripheral. They know you are coming because you think there is food. Before it will get to you, the food will be gone. So let us be committed to PDP”, he stated.
The president made this comment when the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO) presented its report to him at the new banquet hall of Presidential Villa, Abuja.
As for members of the party who chose to remain, Jonathan implored them to put the failure at the just concluded general elections behind them and unite to consolidate the party ahead of the 2019 general elections.
He expressed misgivings about the outcome of the 2015 polls, even as he contended that there was no way the PDP would have scored very low votes in results of some areas in the country.
“If you look at the result, the difference is two point something million votes. If you look at areas where it appears that the PDP scored so low, PDP cannot get that kind of result.
“But the elections are over, the country remains. It is not as if Jonathan alone made the sacrifice; it is all of us. I just made the pronouncement. Some people here paid more sacrifice than I did.”
Jonathan said he did not consult anybody before calling the president-elect to congratulate him and concede defeat.
As the president continued his words of consolation to party members, national coordinator and chief financier of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), Chief Ifeanyi Uba, and former minister of finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, were betrayed by their emotions and broke down in tears.
They were consoled by other sympathisers, as they wept openly inside the new banquet hall of the Presidential Villa where Dr Ahmadu Ali submitted the presidential campaign report over lunch.
Uba wept profusely and uncontrollably to the extent that he had to be taken outside before the event ended. He was thought to have invested huge personal resources and time in the re-election bid of the president.
Consoling party members, Jonathan said, “I know how some of you are already being persecuted. I know how much was involved. The key thing is that as a party we must continue to unite and work hard so that, as we go into the subsequent elections in 2019, PDP would be able to come up stronger. Even in the interest of the nation, we need PDP.
“Though we have lost the presidential, National Assembly and governorship elections massively in the northern part of the country, PDP is still the dominant party. Let us not judge PDP by the result of the presidential election. Our duty is to go back and identify those areas. PDP is still the most organised party that nobody owns.
“I encourage members of our party to remain and not be disillusioned just because we lost the presidential election and decide to go to where things will feed their stomachs or something. It is not easy; I have been here for over five years and you can hardly satisfy 50 per cent of those who worked for you.”
Speaking further, the president likened issues about the 2015 elections to those of the civil war, judging by the way different people gave account of the two historical events.
“The key thing is not whether we lost or won election; the key thing is that Nigeria as a nation must move forward,” Jonathan said.
He added that political parties could only thrive when there was peace and stability in the country, adding that if there was military intervention, all political parties would disappear.
He said, “PDP, I always say, that you don’t need to go to Americans to know how they moved from democrats to republican and so on…you can even come to Ghana very close to us.
“The present administration lost election some eight years back and it came back. The issue is how we re-consolidate our party; if we are committed and work hard, PDP will come back stronger. PDP is still the dominant party.”
He thanked the campaign team members for the role they played and urged them to remain committed to the party.
Earlier, PDPPCO director-general, Ahmadu Ali, commended the president for showing great, exemplary leadership and making the PDP proud despite losing to the rival APC.
He said, “You made the world proud by conceding defeat even when you had several options. You proved to the world that you are committed to your credo that no one’s blood is worth your political ambition.
“By that singular act, you pulled Nigeria back from a seeming pre-determined precipice and you made us proud. While you assuredly lost in the ballots, you won the biggest victory in defeat by that historic phone call”.
Ali said the PDP learnt a lot of lessons from the elections which would be used to wrest power from APC in future elections.
“The PDP will emerge from this debacle stronger, wiser, and prouder. Even in defeat, we are able to impart some valuable lessons to the Nigerian electorate, not only with an unprecedented peaceful handover of power to the opposition, but with Jonathan helping the country avert a possible civil war,” he added.
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