- says APC sinking, he remains “a proud PDP member”
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, CON, has dismissed speculations that he was planning to dump the party and return to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Baraje, who said this during an interview on Arise News TV on Wednesday afternoon, disclosed that he remains a “proud PDP member” and has no intention to leave for any other party as he said “he would never go to APC”.
He noted that there was no reason for him to dump the PDP for the ‘sinking APC’ which he left years ago after realizing that the party was not progressive as its members claimed.
The former PDP national chairman added: “When political parties or associations form alliances, they do so based on certain agreements, and such agreements become operational when the new alliance or party comes to power. But immediately we came to power, no sooner did we realize that all agreements we had were being violated. So, we had to go back. Those in the APC refer to themselves as progressives but their ideas are not progressive.”
Speaking on the argument that both the PDP and the APC are the same, the Kwara-born politician said the people who formed the two parties may look the same but their contents are different.
“There is a clear difference between our party, the PDP and the APC. For the 16 years we were in power, we never found ourselves in the current mess the APC has put us into as a nation. In the last seven years they have been in power, they continue to pass blame. They have messed up the nation’s economy and security. Nigerians now know the difference,” he added.
On the current development within the PDP, Baraje expressed confidence that the party would soon resolve all grievances through its internal mechanism, adding that there is no crisis that can put the PDP apart.
He said: “All you see happening today are fallouts of the presidential primaries, which is normal for every political party. What is important is the capacity of the party to resolve issues through its internal mechanism. In PDP, we have a strong internal mechanism, and I can assure you that we will soon put our house in order and put the present crisis behind us.
“I know Governor Wike is a gentleman who has love and affection for the PDP and he continues to show it in action. I know Wike and some of his sympathisers in the party are aggrieved but I can assure you that the Board of Trustees of the party is taking the bull by the horn and will ensure that all grievances are addressed before we go into the campaigns for the 2023 general elections.”
The PDP Chieftain also cleared the air regarding the alleged rumors credited to him that the All Progressive Congress (APC), which he described his short stay as a member as a ‘mere sojourn’ for which he is in regret, invited Fulani invaders from Mali and Senegal for election functions in the build up to the 2015 general elections.
Reacting to this, Baraje, said: “I’m very shocked and brought aback that the information trending now on social media, and hooked up to me. That is the handiwork of mischief makers. I made a press assertion way back in 2019 during my seventieth birthday, that’s about two and a half years in the past, when I was interacting with the media, and what I stated at the moment was very clear and many media outfits carried the correct version except very few mischief makers that published the erroneous one. I am surprised that some online news platforms are circulating it as if it was a fresh interview.
He further said, “We have since clarified what I stated. Prints media, even the mainstream media carried the corrections and we’ve dispatched it out adequately what I stated in that interview. What I stated categorically was that in 2014, in preparation for the 2015 elections, all efforts were made to make sure that the APC got to power and in the construct of that election, all manners of scandals were made ready to make sure that if APC didn’t win, Nigeria was not going to keep.”
