FORMER President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday assured the nation that at the appropriate time he would give the detail accounts on why the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, lost the 2015 Presidential Election in which he was the flag bearer of the Party.
Jonathan stated this in Abuja yesterday when he received a delegation of the former Speakers of the State House of Assemblies elected under the PDP.
This came just as the former President counselled the Party on the dire need to take a critical look at the numbers of its statutory delegates for its primary elections in its proposed review of the Party’s Constitution.
According to him,” despite the loss, PDP still remains the strongest, we know why we lost the 2015 Presidential election and I will give the detail accounts at the appropriate time.
“People may be writing from left and right but at the appropriate time I will speak out and some of these things would be properly addressed because of the history.
“There are things you don’t say now because people may misunderstand you and accuse you of playing politics with it.
After some years, say five, six or eight years also, you can now state it in a written form and people will now fight for you”
On the number of statutory delegates for Party election of officers, he said that one of the major challenges facing the PDP was how it elect candidates and national officers of the party.
He pointed that there would always be a crisis to the outcome of the party’s primary elections or conventions until the numbers of statutory delegates to those elections were reviewed to about 70 percent.
He said that the party must work out modality in which no one person could influence the delegates to elections.
He said that he believes those who had served at certain level including governorship, ministerial, parliamentarian positions at all levels should be made statutory delegates.
According to him, “That is the area we have not been able to manage properly that is still creating problem for us.
“I believe the next constitution amendment should advocate for that area to be properly examined.
“From my own experience, if that area is strengthened the party will be okay and nobody will complain at the end of primaries, If you lose, you loss gallantly and you support the person that wins.”
Speaking on the issue of war against corruption, Jonathan advised PDP members not to be intimidated, saying that “there are stories of corruption. I say this will always be there because if you read the statement of the organisers of the first military coup, their statement was attributed to corruption.
According to him, “after that, all the coup plotters it is always corruption. It will continue to be but one day we will get out of it. Most nations passed through this stage of life, the only thing I plead of you is not to politicize certain basic things. Issues of corruption, yes, it is worrisome. N body will encourage it.
“The society must come up with reform to reduce it, if you cannot eliminate it totally. No Society is 100 percent free of some of these vices but the approach you go about it is key.
“You may approach it in a way that it will become detrimental to the society. It should be done in a way that will enhance the development of the nation, so we encourage people to do well.”
He pleaded with them to continue with the party unlike those playing “politics of the stomach” defecting to other parties and insisted that the Party did well during its ruling for 16ars by the number of reforms it introduced and implemented.
The former president commended the forum members for coming together to form such association, saying they were important in the strategy of PDP reclaiming power come 2019.
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