…Buhari was misquoted on merger talk —Akpabio
ABUJA — THE National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Tuesday, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur boasted that the election of Chief Anthony Anenih as chairman, Board of Trustees, BoT and Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State as the chairman of PDP governors will reposition the party to challenge the opposition political parties.

According to him, with Anenih and Akpabio on board, the PDP has nothing to fear with regard to 2015 presidential election.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, yesterday, on the chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum, and Anenih as BoT Chairman, Tukur  said, “It then means that the PDP is a repackaged political party, ready to face all the challenges ahead of the party in 2015.”

PDP Chairman, Bamanga Tukur .

Meanwhile, governor Godswill Akpabio has stressed that former Head of State and 2011 presidential candidate of Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, General Muhammadu Buhari was misquoted on statements regarding the merger.

Buhari, had on Monday at an interactive session with CPC members alluded that there was no need for PDP to merge as it had already merged with the Independent National Electoral Commission,  INEC, Police, Judiciary and others.

Akpabio told journalists that he could not understand why a former head of state would choose to pretend that he does not know that INEC, Police, Judiciary and others were all independent institutions constitutionally empowered to have separate functions.

According to him, it was wrong for Buhari to play dumb to such functions for the sake of politics.

Speaking further on what the repackaged PDP will mean for the opposition political parties, Bamanga Tukur said, “It is only a strong party that is a challenge to an opposition party. PDP is now repackaged and is back to assume its rightful position. With what is gradually taken place in the country”.

According to Tukur, with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the APC, “it means that we are drifting towards a two party system, the PDP and the APC.”

On the reconciliatory moves in the PDP, Tukur said, “Most of the people in APC now are original members of the PDP and I can assure that we have commenced talks to bring them back to where they originally belong, which is the PDP. They are coming back, because some of them have told me that their aspirations may not be met in the APC because of the burning ambitions of some individual members.

“They don’t want a party that is being run like a cult. They are gradually commencing a return to the PDP, because the PDP is the only national party in Nigeria. Three of us (Tukur, Akpabio and Anenih) will put our heads together and make PDP move ahead and remain formidable to face the opposition party called the APC.”