Turaki-led PDP insists on fielding candidates in 2027

There are indications that the Interim National Working Committee (INWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has not given up on its hope to field candidates for elective positions in 2027.

The camp insisted on Thursday that despite current challenges, it was sure of fielding a presidential candidate from the camp in 2027 and also contesting the National Assembly, governorship and State Houses of Assembly polls.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does not recognise the faction, which is chaired by Dr Tanimu Turaki.

The umpire has not given access codes to the camp to upload the names of candidates for any upcoming elections to its portal.

INEC recognises the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP chaired by Honourable Abdulrahman Mohammed, which has been uploading the names of candidates to the portal for the general elections.

The NWC successfully uploaded the names of its presidential and National Assembly candidates as of July 10 and it is currently uploading the names for governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.

The Turaki-led INWC has been in court seeking to be recognised as the authentic PDP leadership but hasn’t succeeded.

On Friday last week, an Abuja Federal High Court (FHC) again struck out a suit filed by the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP, seeking to compel INEC to recognise the camp as the authentic PDP leadership.

However, at a strategy meeting with stakeholders in Abuja on Thursday, the National Chairman, Dr Tanimu Turaki, reassured party faithful that the camp would be eventually recognised and field candidates in 2027.

Turaki described the travails of the PDP as temporary, recalling how in the past it experienced a similar leadership challenge but came out victorious ultimately.

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“The essence of this meeting is to brief us on recent happenings on the status of our party. There is a lot of tension and crises in Nigeria, especially in the opposition parties. This is very sad and unfortunate”, he said as he blamed the All Progressives Congress (APC) -led administration for instigating the crises in the opposition.

Turaki said the recent judgment of the FHC notwithstanding, the INWC was working round the clock to get all the candidates on the ballot.

Turaki’s spokesperson said, “We intend, in this meeting, to dissect that judgment so that at the end of the day, that this leadership, the stakeholders that are seated in this hall, will now know where we are. Will now agree on where we need to get to, for the purpose of taking our people and our nation out of the woods, and then we will maybe when we get into the private session, discuss exhaustively what our strategies would be.

“But I want to say, without fear of contradiction, that PDP, your party is on course. The essence of every political party is to legitimately capture power in a given polity. You cannot capture power unless you are on the ballot.

“I want to tell you that PDP shall be on the ballot for all rounds of the 2027 elections; from the presidential down to the state Houses of Assembly election, PDP, this PDP, shall be on the ballot.”

A former governor of Niger State and Secretary of the BoT, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, in his address, calmed the stakeholders, assuring them that God would guarantee them victory over those he called “fugitive and nomadic politicians.”

Babangida Aliyu, like Turaki, expressed confidence that the INWC would ultimately be victorious.

He stated, “Part of my happiness is that those who thought they could kill PDP by running away to another party, they are the ones now who are suffering more than even what we are going through.

“In their case, they don’t even know what is on the ground for them. It is unfortunate that people are not patient enough. It is unfortunate that some people try to play God by making decisions that really belong to God.

“Many of them, we have seen them jumping from one party to the other, for every election that has been conducted, but they forgot the success is not only in their effort. Success is also in the way your heart functions, because our creator judges you by what is in your heart, not what is in your pocket or what is in your mouth.”

Dr Tony Aziegbemi, is the Chairman Forum of State Chairmen, also addressed the session.

Aziegbemi pledged the continued support of the state chairmen to the leadership of Turaki, saying that they would not let the camp down.

“The INWC is assured of commitment and loyalty. We are supporting them as the truth. I encourage each and everyone of us to support the INWC”, he added.