From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would commence its reconcilliation process and peace moves to pacify aggrieved members as soon as its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, return from their oversea trips.
The Board of Trustees ( BoT) Chairman, Walid Jibrin, who disclosed this to journalists, yesterday, said though the board has set up a peace panel chaired by Atiku, nothing much can be done until the presidential candidate and Ayu, who were out of the country return.
The opposition party has been mired in crisis since the nomination of Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as PDP presidential running mate.
Supporters of Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, had expressed misgivings over Okowa’s choice, stating the former who came second in the primary ought to have been the vice presidential candidate.
However, the BoT chairman, last weekend, announced the constitution of a peace panel consisting of Atiku, PDP governors and other party leaders to reach out to Wike and other aggrieved party members.
Meanwhile, the party, yesterday, embarked on a roadshow in Abuja to mobilise Nigerians to get their Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVC) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, told journalists that the target is to mobilise over 10 million Nigerians to register and collect their PVC so that they can participate in next year’s elections.
He charged Nigerians to take advantage of the extension of the Continuous Voter Registration ( CVR) exercise to register and obtain their PVCs.
“What we are doing today is to sensitise Nigerians, particularly youths and women on the need for us to participate actively in the democratic process by collecting permanent voter cards and ensuring that we participate in the 2023 general elections. This is against the backdrop of the fact that we have an APC government that is insensitive, that is rudderless, that completely failed this country, that lied to us in 2015, came to power by fraud and propaganda. Of course, Nigerians know better by now.
“We cannot compare the price of rice in 2015 and now. We know the unemployment rates in 2015 and now. We know the rate of dollar to the naira in 2015 and now. We know the insecurity that is now taking over the land… And we are saying no to these.”
