PDP Restart Project’ seeks to restructure the party – Coordinator

A group of the Peoples Democracy Party members, which call themselves the Steering Committee for “PDP Restart Project”, met in Abuja to chart a new course for the party.

The Coordinator and Committee Leader, Nwosu Butches, told newsmen on Monday after its maiden meeting that there was already a road map to restructure the party ahead of the 2019 elections.

Butches said the road map would be presented to all members and stakeholders of the party on August 18.

Asked if the PDP was dead, Butches said the party “is a moving vehicle that stalled somewhere” but needed to be restarted.

According to him: “It (PDP) is not dead and the party is coming back soon.

“What restart PDP Project seeks to do is to re-engineer and restructure the party.

“The PDP remains the only national party as at today with homogeneity.

“The PDP came to power and stayed for 16 years but most unfortunate the party lost the elections and we decided that having lost the elections, there must be reasons why we lost the elections.

“We have to re-cultivate the value that makes us win elections in the past so that we may come to power again.

“To that extent, we embark on the PDP Restart Project.”

On what will stop the spate of defection from the party, Butches said the party’s primaries leading to the 2015 general elections generated bad blood, which must be addressed.

He said: “Definitely, you noticed that bulk of the complaints from members of our party is the imposition of candidates, lack of internal party democracy.

“This forced a lot of people from the party.

“We have been told that the moment the party begins to implement the blue print (in the Restart Project), they will all return.

“Afterall, it is not greener on the other side.

“Part of the major problems that face PDP was imposition of candidates.

“Popular candidates, whom the people want, are removed and replaced by somebody unknown.”

Butches explained that this was largely responsible for the mass defection of members from the party to other political parties after the elections.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that a former Governor of Kaduna, Alhaji Ahmed Makurfi, and ex-Minister of the Environment, Laurentia Malam, attended the meeting, which had members drawn from across the country.

NAN.