PDP Will Win Bayelsa, Kogi, Imo Guber Polls – Party Stalwart

A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Chief Emmanuel Ogidi, says the party is poised to win the forthcoming governorship elections slated for Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi states on Saturday, November 11, 2023.

Ogidi, a former PDP Vice-Chairman (South) described PDP as a party to beat in the three states, adding that the country’s main opposition party and its candidates were already enjoying massive acceptance and majority support from the people in all three states.

Speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, Ogidi said the party was doing everything possible to quickly reconcile its aggrieved members or any misunderstanding within the party in the three states to ensure that there is unity and members work together, and mobilise for the party’s victory in elections.

“We have the confidence of victory in the elections and that is why we want to quickly talk to one another and reconcile all grievances so that it does not affect our chances,” Ogidi said.

Also expressing confidence that the party’s petition on the 2023 general election at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) be favourable, he said; “The judges must know that whatever one sows today, he reaps tomorrow. They should do things according to their hearts”.

And contrary to speculations that the PDP may not survive if the decision of the judiciary on the presidential election did not favour it, Ogidi said as a vibrant political party, “We are going to bounce back. We have more than 60 members in the House of Reps, 36 senators, and over 300 state lawmakers. We are big. There is hope”.

Ogidi said though PDP seemed to be passing through some challenges at the moment, the party has its in-built mechanism to resolve any challenges, noting that; “There is no family without problems, but we have our own in-built machinery to deal with things like that. That is why we recently had a select meeting of the National Working Committee to proffer the way forward”.

While admitting that the PDP was not structured to be an opposition party, the party Chieftain said the current situation demands that members learn to play the role now that it has found itself in that position.

According to him; “One of our setbacks is that when you look at some of the principal persons in All the Progressives Congress (APC) they were previously in the PDP’.

Reacting to calls for the PDP to suspend all members who allegedly worked against the party in the 2023 general election, Ogidi said the party would ensure there is a fair hearing for everyone on the allegations before taking any decision on such a sensitive issue.

“You need to give them a fair hearing, that is why we are contemplating setting up committees to visit each state and find out what happened and the reasons members acted the way they did. Some of them may have genuine reasons. If you have genuine reason we can reconcile,” Ogidi said. – NAN