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2023: How PDP crisis degenerated, by Ortom

…warns bandits may sack Aso Rock soon

Benue State Governor, Chief Samuel Ortom has faulted the Presidential Candidate and the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for allowing the crisis with the party to fester.

This just as he stated that the crisis if properly managed by both Atiku and the leaders of the PDP was not beyond resolution, adding that PDP has the mandate to restore the country back to the path of development and growth.

Ortom also lamented the worsening security situation in the country, warning that the situation has become so dire that rampaging bandits, if left unchecked, might sack the seat of power in Abuja very soon.

Speaking in a Channels Television programme ‘Politics Today’ yesterday, Ortom faulted the decision of Atiku to pick his Delta State counterpart, Ifeanyi Okowa despite the recommendation of a committee that voted for the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike to run with Atiku.

Recounting the genesis of the problem rocking the party, Ortom said: “I tell you, we supported Wike to be the vice presidential candidate. Some of us had to convince him, he didn’t want to. We told him to look at the larger interest of the party and the Nigerian public who are calling on him to take up the mantle.

“When the party set up a committee, which was initiated by the presidential candidate himself urging us to help him or advise him on who would be the vice presidential candidate of the party.”

According to Ortom 14 out of 17 members of the selection committee voted for Wike but that the decision of the party and its Presidential Candidate to pick Okowa marked the genesis of the problem rocking the PDP.

On the way forward, he said: “We can still through dialogue, through negotiations, through appeals come to a round table to agree on the way forward. We may not 100 per cent agree with the Presidential candidate of the PDP or the party itself but this is something that some of us are calling for dialogue.”

Lamenting the worsening security situation in the country, Ortom accused the Federal Government for engaging in blackmail to silence critical voices in the country who have called on it (government) to act decisively.

In an often heated exchange between the anchor, Seun Okinbaloye and the governor, Ortom said he had been barred from seeing President Buhari due to his criticism.

“Seun I have been prevented from seeing the president, I can no longer enter Aso Rock to see him. So speaking on television is the only way I can get my message across,” he said.

Speaking further he said: “Nobody will want a repeat of the APC to come to power. Nigerians are looking for an alternative. The people are pained by the security situation, the economic problems that we have in Nigeria and also the social problems.

“Nobody is free, we are all enslaved today because of the bad policies of the APC led government. I know that Nigerians have been coerced. We have been intimidated and blackmailed by merely saying the truth.

“You will agree with me that the APC government came on board because of the blackmail and intimidation that they brought against the PDP in 2015. We have a situation where bandits have been kidnapping people in Abuja, the nation’s capital unrestrained. I just hope and pray that God forbid, they won’t raid Aso Rock one day.”

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