Probe Of Jonathan’s Defeat Suffers Huge Set Back

PDP governors at a briefing

Facts are beginning to emerge that the loss suffered by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the just concluded general elections, especially the Presidential poll is still very fresh in the memories of the party chieftains and governors.

PDP governors at a briefing

The Nation on Tuesday reported that the plan to probe President Goodluck Jonathan’s loss to the
candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari in the just concluded presidential election suffered huge set back.

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It was gathered that yesterday’s inauguration of the Ike Ekweremadu-led 15-man panel to investigate the defeat and make recommendations on the way forward of the party was ignored by the three governors named on the team.
The bad blood generated by the poll loss came to the open as Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Theodore Orji (Abia) and Ibrahim Dankwabo (Gombe) refused to attend the ceremony.
It was further learnt that PDP Board of Trustees Secretary Walid Jibril, who happens to be the committee’s secretary, also did not show up at the ceremony.
Although no reason has been given for their absence, it was also learnt that the National Chairman Adamu Mu’azu, who has been under serious attacks following the party’s defeat did not turn up.
But, in response to Mu’azu’s absence, PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh said the party’s national chairman was out of the country on a family commitment, adding that the governors were said to be indisposed.
Meanwhile, the party leadership had on Sunday announced that the committee will review the poor performance of the PDP in the elections and come up with recommendations for its repositioning.
The chairman of the committee, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, had earlier urged members to stop the blame game in the party’s poor outing at the polls.
“Our pains and disappointments are well-founded, especially given the enormous hopes and prospects the party holds as a pan-Nigerian movement for social, economic and political transformations. Thus, it is not a loss for the PDP only, but a loss to the great people of this country that the party lost the steering at the time it had laid a solid foundation through the transformation agenda of the present administration. However, we must appreciate the fact that change is the only constant thing in life. Much as we are pained by the sad turn of events, we must come to terms with the fact that anger, recriminations, self-pity, and blame trading will not take us even an inch away from the harsh outcomes of the 2015 general elections. Let me emphasise that the worst tragedy that could befall the PDP is not to have lost the 2015 presidential election or our majority status at the National Assembly or some PDP controlled states to the opposition. All through human history, even the greatest and strongest empires have suffered one setback or the other at certain points of their existence. Instead, the greatest tragedy would be our failure to draw from the lessons embedded in the outcome of the elections,” Ekweremadu said.
The deputy senate president said the party’s woes present an opportunity to restructure and reinvent it to retake its rightful place in the country’s political terrain for a much longer time
“But we must first understand our immediate past to be able to chart our future. I believe this underscores the essence of this committee, which we have been called to serve on. Indeed, unless a man knows where the rain started beating him, he would never know where it stopped,” he said.
Ekweremadu assured that the committee would be fair and just in the discharge of its duties. He said the committee will execute its task without fear or favour and pleaded with members to halt the quarreling.
“Such tendencies are not only capable of further deepening the challenges we currently face, but also wrongly portraying us as confused, frustrated, stranded and bad losers. We must be careful lest we play into the hands of our opponents. We also urge all our members to remain with the PDP and rest assured that we will bounce back very soon. I agree with the position of our national leader President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan that those who dump the PDP will return home with empty stomach. I therefore enjoin all of us to remain in our house and rebuild it instead of running to already-made shelters,” Ekweremadu said.
Prof. Wale Oladipo, the national secretary, who represented Mu’azu asserted that PDP transformed the country from a near pariah state to the “largest economy” in Africa.
He said the party increased the frontiers of freedom in its 16 years of ruling the country at the centre. He said the PDP was very proud of its achievements.
Oladipo, who disclosed that the committee was given three weeks to submit its report, further pointed out that President Jonathan was exceptional about the ongoing name calling and media war among the party leaders.
The professor pleaded with the party leaders to stop the attacks and counter attacks.
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Other members of the committee present at the inauguration comprised Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Emeka Ihedioha; Rivers State Governor-elect, Nyesom Wike; Interior Minister Abba Moro; former Ekiti chapter chairman Makanjuola Ogundipe, Alhaji Adamu Waziri and Chief Pegba Otemolu.
The PDP is still experimenting on all available ways of pin pointing the actual cause of its downfall in the March 28 presidential election.
The party leadership had been at a loggerhead following the blame game that accompanied the poll defeat.
Just recently the party in a new statement released by its spokesperson, Mr. Olisa Metuh, said the PDP’s headquarters was side-lined during the campaigns, and that “overzealous” persons were allowed to run a hate campaign against the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari. A development it claimed made the former military ruler more popular than his counterpart, Jonathan