Erstwhile National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji\u00a0Bamanga Tukur\u00a0has said a mortal who would lead the party must be fearless, consistent\u00a0and focused\u00a0as he admitted passing through difficult times while in office.<\/p>\n
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Tukur said but for the doggedness of President Goodluck Jonathan and the\u00a0wisdom he\u00a0displayed in managing the affairs of PDP, the party would have long\u00a0collapsed, given\u00a0what he described as \u2018evil plots\u2019 by certain members to completely destroy
\nthe\u00a0party.<\/p>\n
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Tukur said he made a huge sacrifice by resigning from office as he\u00a0expressed regrets\u00a0that some members of the PDP preferred the party to be run with the\u00a0mentality of\u00a0business as usual, because, according to him, such members were utterly
\nopposed to\u00a0any form of Change in the running party.<\/p>\n
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He said his loyalty to President Goodluck Jonathan and his governmentb\u00a0remained\u00a0unflagging as he pledged to always support the president and the PDP to\\\u00a0the best of\u00a0his abilities, at any given time.<\/p>\n
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Tukur made these known when some clerics visited and prayed with him at his\u00a0residence weekend, insisting that he stood by every decision he took to\u00a0reform the\u00a0party just to deepen democracy and make Nigeria raise its head in the\u00a0comity of\u00a0great nations.<\/p>\n
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He told the clerics not to cease in praying for President Goodluck\u00a0Jonathan and the\u00a0PDP to overcome what he referred to as their trying moments in the\u00a0contemporary\u00a0politics of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
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He said he found it unbelievable to discover that some stakeholders of the\u00a0party\u00a0never had the interest of PDP or Nigeria at heart.<\/p>\n
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According to him, personal ambitions, crave for sudden wealth and\u00a0unimaginable level\u00a0of treachery usually got the full attention of such stakeholders than\u00a0anything else.<\/p>\n
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He said, \u201cI did my best to bring PDP to good standard and international best\u00a0practices on politics. I came in with the mind-set to reform the party by\u00a0promoting\u00a0the principle of election instead of selection and the idea of consensus\u00a0instead of\u00a0imposition.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAlas, I was proved wrong by those who believed that the old order in PDP\u00a0must be\u00a0retained, not for any good thing, but for their selfish interests.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSome members got so desperate that they turned to the media and funded\u00a0all negative\u00a0reports against me. If you are familiar with all the negative media\u00a0reports, none\u00a0attributed any wrong doing to me. The reports only echoed the views of the\u00a0sponsors\u00a0that I was unbending in my desire to change the bad situation in PDP.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey even attempted to use the media to get me in confrontation with Mr\u00a0President.\u00a0I never spoke to anyone about issues, yet the media would attribute some\u00a0reports to\u00a0me. But we knew those who were behind it all. They had forgotten that what\u00a0ever goes\u00a0round surely must come round.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTo put me on the spot, they sponsored another report that governorship\u00a0aspirants\u00a0were buying me bullet-proof jeeps so that I can give them governorship\u00a0slot in their\u00a0states. I understood that the authors of such reports had denied what they\u00a0wrote. It\u00a0is wickedness when the media distort facts against you, just to please\u00a0their pay\u00a0masters\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cHow could I do such a thing, when indeed, I was the one advocating change\u00a0in PDP. I\u00a0waged war against the idea of imposition or selection of candidates for\u00a0elections in\u00a0our party. We did that successfully in Adamawa and it is working. We\u00a0conducted\u00a0transparent elections in Anambra and the best candidate won. We never\u00a0favoured any\u00a0candidate during the process.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAll the same, those who benefited from the rots within the party in the\u00a0past stood\u00a0on our ways. My conviction is that very soon, Nigerians will know the\u00a0truth. It then\u00a0matters what the country would do with such truth\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Erstwhile National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji\u00a0Bamanga Tukur\u00a0has said a mortal who would lead the party must be fearless, consistent\u00a0and focused\u00a0as he admitted passing through difficult times while…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n