PDP ’ll Resist Return Of Military - Ogbulafor

Sulaimon Olanrewaju & Saka Gbeminiyi, Lagos - 03.05.2008

The National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, has vowed that the party will resist any attempt by the military to return to power in the country.

Ogbulafor, who was addressing newspaper editors in Lagos on Thursday, said since military rule brought untold hardship to the people, the party was poised to guard against the repeat of that.

“That is why I said that PDP will rule for 60 years. It is to make sure that the military which ruled the country for 29 years never returns to power,” Ogbulafor said.

The chairman said the party was not interested in making the country a one-party state; rather it would promote multi-party system since there would not be a victory without opponents to defeat.

He advised other parties to get their acts together, and work hard to be as successful as PDP.

Ogbulafor said the party would encourage internal democracy by strengthening its internal organs.

“We have now decentralised our system such that complaints that come from the wards will be treated at the ward level; those that come from local governments will be treated at the local government level and so on before coming to the national level. By the time we go through all these levels, solutions will have been found. This gives us, at the national level, some time to do some other things,” the chairman said.

He also spoke of the resolve of the present leadership of the party to reconcile all the warring groups in the party.

“It is a normal thing after every congress or convention in a party to have some people feeling aggrieved”, Ogbulafor said. “That is the way it is all over the world. We shall do all we can to ensure that we reconcile all the aggrieved members of the party.”

He also said that some committees had been set up to look into the issue of the aggrieved members of the party. He added that Chief Jim Nwobodo had been given the assignment of looking into the issue in the South-East region of the country.

Ogbulafor also said that the party would dust up the report of the Alex Ekwueme’s committee and work on the recommendations.