Posted by By JOE EFFIONG, Uyo on
Former Vice President and chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Reconciliation Committee, Dr Alex Ekwume, has lamented that the party, which he and other elder statesmen formed to take care of Nigeria 's problems, has since lost focus.
Former Vice President and chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Reconciliation Committee, Dr Alex Ekwume, has lamented that the party, which he and other elder statesmen formed to take care of Nigeria 's problems, has since lost focus.
Speaking at a gala night organised in his honour by Akwa Ibom State government, in Uyo on Saturday, Ekwueme, who made a brief remark as he said there was nothing to reconcile in Akwa Ibom, however, said despite the misadventure that had befallen the party, there was a strong need to move forward and forget about the ugly past.
He advised other states to learn the act of reconciliation from Akwa Ibom, which seemed to have no aggrieved person from the party as most of those who left had since been called back and properly reintegrated.
The former vice president equally thanked Akwa Ibom State for standing by him during the 2003 presidential primaries 'even when other states were scared away. You, Delta and Bauchi stood by me and it is a thing I will always appreciate; that is why I say that Akwa Ibom is my state."
The state Deputy Governor, Obong Patrick Ekpotu, who stood in for Governor Godswill Akpabio, explained that in the process of trying to maintain the prestige of being the biggest party in Africa, PDP had been compelled to step on people's toes and made politics too costly for fair competition, leading to many people losing faith in the party.
Ekpotu poured encomiums on Ekwueme for accepting the onerous responsibility of reconciling the aggrieved former members of PDP even when he was a victim of PDP injustice. He said he wished other prominent Nigerians would show such humility in accepting responsibilities for the nation's sake.
The chairman of the party in the state, Mr Otu Ita Toyo, said there was no other person in Nigeria more suited for the job of reconciling PDP than Ekwueme, being a founding father of the party.
Toyo, however, said that there was nothing to reconcile in Akwa Ibom because there was no conflict in the party in the state.
'I'm the total chairman; meaning that I'm in control of even the other political parties. So we lent other people to contest in other political parties. Now they can come back anytime because our doors are always open to them.
'We had the fairest primaries, even though we had the largest number of gubernatorial aspirants in the country. We had already started the reconciliation of aggrieved persons, if any; those still outside are only on sabbatical. They can still return."