By Folorunso Alagbede, Abuja
Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has warned that another eight years of the Proples Democratic Party, PDP, in opposition, may lead to the death of the party.
Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 presidential election, has, consequently, tasked the Board of Trustees (BoT) members as well as others chieftains and leaders of the party to work very hard to ensure victory for the party in the next year’s general elections.
The former Vice President expressed the fears yesterday during a consultative meeting he held with members of the (BoT) of the PDP in Abuja.
Atiku passionately pleaded which the Boat, which is seen as the conscience of the party to give him another opportunity to advance the ideas of the party with a view to consolidating Nigeria’s democracy, unity and development.
Turning to the Senator Walid Jubrin-led members of the BoT on why they should ensure PDP wins the forthcoming 2023 election, Atiku said, “your excellences, friends, brothers and sisters, we are now at a crucial moment in this country.
“Many of you here, it is either we retire together or we move on together.
“Somebody said that we recorded 12 million votes during the last election. Those are not only my votes, those were our votes.
“In achieving or recording those 12 million votes, it was all of us and I believe if we work together again, we can surpass those votes.
“As one of the speakers said, I am worried and you should be worried too that if we do not win, it means we will be in opposition again for the next eight years.
“”By the next eight years, I don’t know how many will be left in politics and it may even ultimately lead to the death of the party because people gravitate, particularly in developing countries, towards governments.
“Ordinary people naturally gravitate towards government. So this is a very, very crucial and historical moment in history, for our survival. I want you to think about it.
“Yes, people have not stopped talking about power rotation and zoning, or whatever it is.
“For sure in the party, we invented and formulated this zoning policy simply because we wanted every part of this country to have a sense of belonging and I personally have paid my dues on the issue of zoning.
“Many of you were members of our government when all the PDP governors came in 2003 and said I should run and I say no.
“We have agreed that power should remain in the South-West.
“Some of those governors then that supported me went to jail, some of them were kicked out of their offices, we made sure that we kept policy.
“So, therefore, you cannot imply that the PDP has not been following the zoning policy.
“In the many years of PDP government, eight years and six years, all of them were from the South. So we should not be stampeded by the opposition party. “They have a moral obligation which is inescapable”, he said.
