Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, old friends, associates, new entrants and other members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who were members of former President Umaru Musa Yar’adua have regrouped to support the presidential ambition of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The prominent men and women were said to have gathered weekend at the first secretariat of the party in Lagos to chart a course for the reawakening of the Yar’adua political structure and to unveil a new political movement to operate purely under the PDP.
In a statement released Wednesday in Abuja on behalf of the coordinating council, signed by Pastor Kayode Jacobs, he quoted the South-West Secretary of PDP Hon Rahman Owokoniran, as saying the meeting was coming at a critical time when people were perpetrating all forms of lies and making efforts to hoodwink Nigerians into taking regrettable decision again in 2023.
Owokoniran said: “It is a privilege that we are called upon again to be part of the process that will bring life back to governance in Nigeria and will recover our political destiny trampled and held down perpetually by a group of political adventurers on propaganda, lies and economic subjugation.”
He explained further that the gathering was not to bring up a new group, as that has been the bane of PDP over the years but to start a movement that will not only deliver the Atiku-Okowa mandate but make every PDP member proud and happy.
He told the gathering that “whatever the party is going through now will be resolved and reconciled in the larger interest of the people.”
The meeting, however, resolved to recover Lagos state from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and deliver Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 general elections, by ensuring that all aggrieved persons are pacified, offences forgiven and correctable injustices redressed.
“Though an independent movement, we resolved to work in synergy with the party as advocates to educate Nigerians on the Atiku Project.
“All Nigerians must key into this, Nigerians must be unified and this is the foundation upon which Nigeria can be recovered. We must not allow Nigerians to throw away their votes on a political party that can not muster enough spread and votes to win a national election or vote another that has brought us much trouble and will take the nation further aground.”
Promoters of the new movement to be unveiled in the next few days include Chief Dapo Sarumi from Lagos, among others