No amount of strategies put up by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, will make Nigeria return to the pit, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has said.
Tinubu who spoke shortly after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Wednesday said his party was not afraid of the moves by the PDP and its presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Tinubu who was reacting to the question about the strategy meeting by Atiku in Dubai in the bid to oust Buhari and the APC government in the 2019 election said Nigerians would not go back to the “illusion” of PDP.
His words: “We don’t fear. Whether it is in the jungle, or it is in Dubai or it is in Abu Dhabi, people are free to meet and strategise in any way they want but we are not going back to the illusion of the PDP.
“It is not possible, Nigerians will not do that. They say slow and steady wins the race. We inherited that from our forefathers and knowledgeable people. We can’t go back to the pit that we inherited for 16 years. They can strategise from anywhere but a leopard cannot change it skin.”
He also spoke on the alleged plot to remove the APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, over the crises that emanated as a result of the party’s primaries held recently.
He expressed opposition to the call for his removal saying the supremacy of the party had to be respected.
His words: “We all have to respect party supremacy. You were all here when we had the congress; we elected the new executives. The convention we had it; the NEC was formed and we surrendered to avoid conflict. To avoid domination, to avoid abuses of power, we surrendered our rights – all rights – to the National Working Committee headed by Adams Oshiomhole.
“We submitted that the National Working Committee should set up electoral bodies to supervise various state congresses and elections. We signed for it. So, if it is not in our individual favour, so be it. We gave three options: Consensus – where there is no consensus because if you are more than two or three and you cannot agree to one candidate, you go to the next level.
“The next level is the stakeholders’ delegate election and you have to be supervised by the National Working Committee of the party, national election committee of the party. That shows party supremacy.
“We had the freest option, the less cumbersome is to open direct primary, line up and count the number, 1,2,3… If you win, you win and if you fail, go home. Then appeal committee was set up to listen to all appeals, internal mechanism for conflict resolution. It was there; you cannot turn round against that, you cannot turn against all of that.
“No. Party is supreme, party must be respected, abuses will not do it and anger will not do it. It is party politics, somebody will win and somebody will lose… too bad.”
