Speech of the National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, on the submission of the report of the 2019 Elections Review Committee.
Protocols.
Recall that at the 87th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of our great party in this hall on January 16, 2020, approval was given for the constitution and inauguration of your committee. This party has always formed the positive habit of examining their actions with a view to properly understanding how and why they fared in elections.
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After the 2015 election, the party under my leadership as acting National Chairman, set up a similar review Committee headed by the then Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu. It was the analysis from that Ekweremadu committee report that informed the direction of the party in the subsequent 2019 general elections that improved our performance from controlling 11 states in 2015 to 16 in 2019.
Your committee was set up in the same spirit to look back and find out how we fared in 2019 and why we got the outcome. Your terms of reference said it all that, “to among others identify the remote and immediate causes responsible for the loss of the 2019 Presidential Election”.
The National Working Committee, monitored diligently your committee performance, how you embarked on wide range consultations with critical stakeholders of our party particularly founding fathers and also your involvement of consultants and other technical hands.
I have no doubt in my mind that your report will form the bedrock of our party’s plan ahead of 2023 general elections. The NWC is going to study and analyze your report meticulously and come up with a position that will be beneficial to the party.
The PDP is putting no stone unturned to ensure it regains federal power and this report is going to be the take off point and keystone to our subsequent actions ahead of 2023.
We urge President Muhammadu Buhari and his APC administration to embark on immediate electoral reform that will ensure free, fair and transparent elections in the country and put Nigeria in parity with other developed democracies in the world. Having failed roundly in the delivery of any dividend to Nigerian people, and having brought the country to a status of a failed nation with an unprecedented collapse of all structures, APC knows as a fact that Nigerians would not want to do anything with them again.
As a result, they are putting all studs on the way to conducting credible elections. But we need to warn that the only thing keeping this country alive today is the fact that APC will be history by 2023. They are aware of this reality and they are trying to use their usual propaganda to create a different image of themselves, but Nigeria knows better and cannot be fooled again.
Relying on the recommendations of this report, the NWC will work with think tanks, consultants and all critical stakeholders of our great Party to enhance the new PDP narratives that will help address the yawning absence of leadership in the country. We will continue to build the party along the line of the recommendations with a view to cultivating wide support base with utmost urgency towards 2023.
Aside the frightening security situation which we all know, just this Monday National Bureau of statistics released fearful data on unemployment situation in the country to be over 33%, by the time you minus minors and aged in our population, you will discover that virtually all our youth population are unemployed. By 2015 when PDP left office it was at 4.31%. Why then should we be surprised that the nation is being overwhelmed with banditry when our useful population are ignored and abandoned. With all these sour tells of our country, PDP has no option but to redouble their efforts to ensure that good governance is returned to the country. Everything shows very clearly that President Buhari and his APC have no capacity to deliver any good to this country.
May I use this forum to charge PDP members and all lovers of democracy across the country and beyond to put their acts together ahead of 2023.
Finally, your Excellency, may I appreciate on behalf of the party, the exceptional job of your committee and to assure you that the recommendations will be given critical consideration looking ahead. Congratulations for a job well done.
God bless.