By JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU

ABUJA — SENATE leader, Chief Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, has debunked the insinuations that the ongoing crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would affect the chances of the party winning elections in 2015.

Senator Ndoma-Egba, in an exclusive interview with Vanguard in Abuja, also advised the leadership of the party to imbibe the spirit of inclusiveness and not exclusion in its dealings with members, even as he held the view that concessions had to be made to settle the ongoing rift within the party.

Fielding questions on the best way to resolve the crisis in the party, he said:  “Well, politics is about inclusiveness and not about exclusion, politics is like the Biblical good Shepherd that will leave 99 sheep and go after one lost sheep.

“You must recover every member of your fold that is leaving or threatening to leave, that is what politics is all about. And I am sure that those currently in the middle of the negotiations appreciate the need to recover everybody and retain everybody under the big and strong umbrella.

“Well let me say this, that the problem in the party does not affect the structures of the party. We still have our penetration right down to every ward in this country, to every local government, to every state.

“The fact that we have a crisis does not automatically translate into ward structures for the opposition. The opposition still has to establish itself in every nook and cranny of this country, so, it is like we lawyers say, depending on the weakness of your opponent’s case instead of the strength of your own case.

“The fact that we have a crisis has not changed our structure and has not changed the penetration of the opposition, so I don’t see how the opposition will benefit from this crisis that has not effectively altered the fact that we exist in every ward of this country, even in the states that the PDP is not in power.”