PDP Set to Take Majority Seats at N'Assembly, Says Party Chieftain

As part of strategies to regain power in 2019, the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is perfecting plans to take majority control of the two chambers of the National Assembly before the end of the second quarter of 2018.

A former Legal Adviser to the PDP North Central zone and an aspirant for the office of the National Publicity Secretary, Mohammed Kabir Usman, who made this known while speaking to journalists in Abuja at the weekend, disclosed that PDP members in the National Assembly who left the party before and after the 2015 general elections have been holding talks with the party, and are set to return to the fold once the December 9 national convention is successfully concluded.

Usman, who is seeking to be endorsed by the North Central PDP for the position of the PDP spokesman ahead of the convention, also revealed that a number of former and serving governors who initially left the PDP for the All Progressives Congress (APC) are also being consulted to pave way for their return to the party.

“We have been very active and involved in a lot of issues in the party. In the last seven to eight months, we have been making contacts with quite a number of people in the National Assembly and a number of serving and former governors, who were with us in the PDP before they left for the APC. All they are waiting for is a free and fair national convention, and once that is achieved, they will be back to the party, because the APC is not a credible platform and its gimmicks have been exposed.

“At the level of the North Central where I have served for eight years as a zonal legal adviser, quite a number of them now in the APC were in PDP and we have been in contact with them. I can assure you that more than 80 percent of our National Assembly members from the North Central are practically set to return to the PDP.

“So across Nigeria, we have done a lot of consultations and negotiations. Mark what I am telling you today, before the end of the second quarter of next year, the National Assembly is going to be controlled by the PDP,” he stated.

Usman, who was fielding questions on the confidence of the PDP to return to power in 2019, said the issues that led to the exodus have been addressed, adding that the nation will “witness unprecedented political realignments that will return certain states as well as control of the National Assembly to the PDP.”

The former PDP Zonal Legal Adviser also dispelled anxieties ahead of PDP’s national convention, stating that the party will get it right despite the current disagreements.

“I can assure you that with our internal conflict resolution mechanisms, the PDP will resolve all issues ahead relating to the national convention. We are determined to get it right because the entire nation now looks up to the PDP for direction and liberation from the clutches of APC misrule,” he said.

While lamenting the ugly state of affairs in the country, He said the APC has not only succeeded in wrecking the country with impunity, it has subjected the citizens to untold hardship and fear.

Usman urged Nigerians not to despair as the “PDP is now reengineered to take over power in 2019 and return the nation to the path of prosperity, freedom and political stability.”