By Ola Ajayi

Ibadan—Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chieftains gathered in the  Oyo State capital, Ibadan, yesterday with a resolve to get to the root of what actually led to its defeat in the last elections.

PDP Special National Convention: Delegates casting their votes at 2013 PDP Special National Convention . Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan.

The party is particularly interested in what went wrong in the North Central and South West zones of the country which used to be its base.

Among the chieftains of the party that arrived  the state include the former Deputy Speaker in the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha who is the Chairman of the post election review committee of the party, Adamu Maina Waziri, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa and Hon Uzor Azubuike, among several others.

Ihedioha, who admitted that the party made some blunders said he was optimistic that having identified the pitfalls that eclipsed the dominance of the party and addressed them, electoral victory for the party  was sure in 2019.

Despite the party’s loss in the election, he noted that the numerical superiority of the party was incontrovertible

He said “It just appears to all of us that Nigeria is still largely a PDP state. In every ward, local government areas, states, zones and indeed in the entire country, PDP remains the most popular party by our reckoning.

“What has happened to us was that we made very costly mistakes. We took steps that we shouldn’t have taken. And those steps today are beginning to haunt us.

“The party in its wisdom decided to take steps early enough, as early as May to set up this committee and the committee can begin to review what happened in the election. That’s why it’s called post election review committee.’’

To ensure that the party bounces back, he added, “Last week, we invited all the state and zonal chairmen and we briefed them on the various programmes that we wish to adopt to reach out to the various states. Consequently, we set up three groups: each of these groups consisting of statesmen and women of our great party to visit two zones each. Our group is responsible for finding out what happened in the North Central and South West zones”, he said.

“We concluded findings on our programmes in the North Central zone yesterday (Tuesday) evening, and today(Wednesday), we are here to commence work as regards the South West zone. We requested all the state chairmen and the zonal chairmen to intimate all stakeholders of our party who have any submission to make to us, because we are interested in finding out what actually went wrong and we believe that it is when we find out what went wrong that we can apply solutions”.

“So, this visit is a fact finding mission. And for us, we believe that in our normal way of playing politics, everyone and every group will have an opportunity to make their presentations. We’ll collate these presentations for onward submission to a committee which would articulate them, review them and come up with our collective position.”