ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. Barely one month after the presidential election and accepting defeat, even before the last results were announced, President Goodluck Jonathan spoke out about the election and the performance of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Speaking on Thursday at the formal presentation of the report of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Jonathan insinuated that he did not lose the election, going by the voting pattern in the presidential election and the margin of difference between the PDP and the All Progressives Congress (APC). He said the PDP remained the dominant party in Nigeria, even though the election results showed that the presidential candidate of the APC, Muhammadu Buhari, swept most of the states in the North and the South-West.
“PDP is still the dominant party. If you look at the result, the difference is just over two million votes. And if you look at the areas where it is perceived that PDP scored so low, PDP couldn’t have gotten those kinds of scores,” he said.
He stated that what was paramount was peace after the elections, because many people, including the international community, were anticipating chaos in Nigeria after the elections.
Jonathan disclosed that some countries had been on the stand-by to evacuate their citizens after the elections: “The countries that brought ships, everything around us, waiting to evacuate their citizens, are happy because there was nobody to evacuate. The country was so tense, but everything has gone down now and I think that is the most important thing because the conviction is that you must have a country before you can run for an office. “Nigeria is a very complex country and you must manage it with care. Yes, I did not consult anybody before I made that phone call but I made that phone call on behalf of all you and on behalf of the PDP.”
Jonathan said the PDP remains “the most organised party” and one that is not owned by “anybody”. He urged his fellow party men to look beyond the loss of the 2015 elections and prepare for the next contest in 2019.
”For PDP, whatever happened now is like a slip?, you don’t need to go to America to know how power goes from the Democrats to the Republicans. It is like once you serve eight years you are ready to hand over to either the Republicans or the Democrats. So theirs is almost an established setting. But our neighbour Ghana, the present ruling party lost some eight years back and, of course, they came back and won the elections.
“So the problem is not whether we lost the elections. That is history now, but ?how do we consolidate our party and move forward? If we are committed and if we work very hard, definitely, PDP will bounce back.
“PDP is still the dominant party. If you look at the result, the difference is just over two million votes ?and if you look at the areas where it is perceived that PDP scored so low, PDP couldn’t have gotten those kinds of scores but the elections are over, we put the country first. “
Credit: Daily Independent (Nigeria)
