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Chief Edwin Clark (Image source: theeagleonline.com.ng)
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Foremost Ijaw Leader and a key ally of President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Edwin Clark, has accused some
national leaders of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party of being insincere in
their attitude towards the second term ambition of President Jonathan.
He also accused them of following
the President to his campaign rallies instead of going to their home states to
also galvanize support for the President.
Clark stated this in Abuja on
Saturday while playing host to the PDP Aspirants Forum who paid him a courtesy
visit. The visit was aimed at expressing their grievances over how the party
treated them (PDP aspirants) in the last primaries in various states, The Punch reports.
Clark said he was particularly sad
with the way the PDP governorship primary was conducted in some states,
especially in Adamawa State.
He said, “Everybody was ready to
hold the governorship primary in Yola. People were waiting in Yola for the
primary and the PDP brought the primary to Abuja overnight, hired people from
Nyanya and others. Whereas they held the congresses in Yola, they later
resorted to hire people to attend the primary here in Abuja. There is injustice
in the party. Some of the national leaders don’t want the party to succeed and
they are disloyal to the President. I have asked them to go to their states to
campaign, but they refused. They are following the President everywhere. Some
of them want the party to fail.”
He begged the aggrieved aspirants
not to leave the ruling party for the opposition, the All Progressives
Congress, saying the party has nothing to offer Nigerians other than to
enthrone a northern President.
Members of the group hinged their
grievances on the grounds that the party did not hold primary to pick any of
its candidates, saying that all its flag bearers were handpicked by godfathers.
The group, however, threatened to
institute a court action to nullify the candidature of all the candidates of
the party in the forthcoming general elections.
Clark however pleaded with the aspirants,
stating that the party would not forget their labour and that they should work
together to achieve success for the party in the forthcoming polls.
He added that when the party wins
the election, all the efforts of the aspirants would be rewarded.
The group had also threatened to
work against the interest of the party in the forth-coming general elections if
their grievances were not addressed.
The aspirants said they were highly
disappointed by the manner in which the party’s primaries were handled across
the country.
The aspirants, who came together
under the leadership of Chief Richard Lamai in Abuja, had also threatened that
the resources they expended on campaigning and wooing delegates for the botched
primaries must be refunded to them before the commencement of the elections,
otherwise they would work against the PDP success at the elections.
The forum comprised of aggrieved
aspirants who lost out in the party’s primaries across the six geo-political
zones of the country.
Speaking at the forum’s emergency
meeting in Abuja, Lamai said, “We are collectively aware that reconciliation
and reintegration had not been effective in our party. The leadership of the
party has carried on as if nothing happened and without due regard to aspirants
who invested resources and time in building our party.”
He added that the aggrieved
aspirants did not lose out in the primaries due to their inability to mobilize
and canvass for votes from delegates, but that the leadership of the party
across the states had candidates already anointed for the PDP tickets.
Lamai, however, attributed the
challenges being faced by the PDP across the country to the “lack of internal
democracy and political deceit in the party by the leadership.”
Also speaking at the meeting, two aggrieved
members from Kaduna and Rivers states noted that the monies spent on the
procurement of nomination forms and mobilization of delegates to the botched
primaries must be refunded to them before the elections.
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