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A Peoples Democratic Party, PDP chieftain, Hon Teejay Yusuf has said those saying that the major opposition party in Nigeria has become an empty shell after the departure of bigwigs must be delusional.
The three term former House of Representatives member disclosed this in a chat with journalists in Abuja at the weekend.
He said:”Whoever, for lack of a better word, okay, I need to be a bit civil. I will not go the way I would like to go. But whoever is saying that, need to really, really sit down and have a rethink.
“Either the person is delusional, or is a bad student of history. You will understand that political contestations are normal, and when the elections are coming, you hear a lot of loud noise that does not translate to electoral gains,I mean, victory, or showing your capacity of being the politician on ground.
“By the grace of God, I have been in the political space for some time.
I was a student union leader. I ran an election as a student. Won an election as national general secretary of National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, , I was a parliamentary member in the university before I came into active politics.
“So, it’s not that I study politics, I practice politics to some extent. I’m not ascribing to myself, anything ominous, I mean, wisdom or what.
” But a party that has national assembly members, house of assembly members, has local government chairmen, has about 10 governors, because there is a crisis, people say it’s dead.
“ACN at a point had only one governor, CPC one, APGA one. All together, coming together to form APC, there were about five governors, and APC is what it is today.
“People forget history, that there was a time that PDP had almost 30 state governors.
So, because APC is having 27 state governors, PDP is done. No, it’s a season, life itself is time and season.
“It is the time for APC now. And I don’t fault them. I don’t fault those privileged.
I fault their governance strategies and what have you.
” But I don’t fault that privilege. All we need to do is to keep doing what we are doing as a party, rejig our party, make sure we reconcile, compromise and what have you.
” We will come back, and Nigerians will realise that they made a very huge mistake throwing out PDP in 2015. I know they already realise it now. But they should not allow anybody to bamboozle them without narrating that it’s dead.
” It’s to further make them dead in deadness because the moment you lose hope in the alternative you have, you begin to resign to fate, and you accept your fate the way it is, then you won’t make it. Because one thing about human beings is that you are a sum total of your thinking pattern.
“Your action comes from your depth of revelation inside. You can’t have outward revelation without inner revelation. So I am advising.
PDP is well alive. I am a member of PDP. I am aware.
” II talk to the high and mighty in PDP. I interact the way I like. Even those who are fighting do not want it to die.
It is ego, contestation, control. If PDP is dead, why are people struggling for the control?
“Why are people fighting to be in charge? Does anybody want to be in charge of an empty shell? So, I disagree with them.
On the abysmal performance of pdp in the last by-elections across Nigeria, Teejay said:
“We didn’t do well at all. Yes, there was a time that those who were in power now didn’t do well. We did well before now.
“We still won in some places. There was a time we did some by-election, only PDP will win all. But we won some.
“And don’t forget that our democracy has not matured to a level where people stay in opposition on principle alone. Some people joined the ruling party for, I mean, you know, it’s not everyone that has a second address.
“Some politicians don’t have a second address.
I mean, out of office they can’t feed themselves anymore. So, we must realise those hard facts. But let me tell you, you get it right, you get the right person and the right candidates on board, PDP will shock you.
PDP is the only party till date that is like a religion. You go to some localities, you see, in fact, in most places where people vote against PDP, the elites coordinated that vote. If you leave the people, most of them will vote PDP.
“But it is a conscious coordination by an elite that produced some of those results. PDP is not dead.
On the sudden departure of some bigwigs Teejay said: “With due respect to some of the leaders there, but majority of those people who are there, are people I call nomadic politicians. Their nomadism is in the highest level.
I can give you history of them, how they’ve been, the” jumpology” of the highest order, what you call jumpology in the university those days. So, they are never,/ around because when the party is not in good shape, if it’s not election period, we don’t see them. When the party need to rejig, 2015 to 2019, they were not there until election in 2019.
“2019 to 2022, they were not there until election period. So, some of us felt that no, it’s about time we do not allow you to make our party, I didn’t join politics with the commitment that to make one person president, it must be you. No!
“I joined politics to make sure I can contribute my quota to better the lot of my people. So, it’s not about one person’s ambition. So, ADC is about one person ambition.
“It’s I, myself, Nigeria limited. And they will crash in due season. The reality will come soon.
On the possibility of ADC producing president in 2023, he said: “Tell me when one region’s anger has produced president. It’s a collaboration.
“And the mere fact that you were the one that brought this ethnic dichotomy to the fore in 2014 against a
Southern president that it is the turn of the North. And if the North stays 8 years, it’s the turn of the North.
“So, it’s about you. The rules and the values must be about when it is you. The goalpost is shifting. Now, it should be a competent hand not about region. Who told you you are the most competent person? How? What’s the parameter? I don’t have any business with ADC. Let them go. They have a right to have a party.
“But they should stop this attack on PDP. If PDP is dead, why would they focus on PDP? Why are they talking about PDP all the time? Every time, they are talking about PDP, it’s because they are pained.
“They assumed that when they moved, there will be a big group to follow them. No governor followed them. So, they were shocked because before then, there was this story… Tell me. Who has followed them? Apart from those who are ambitious.
“It’s a camouflage association of ambitious politicians whose philosophy is about if it’s not me, it’s nobody. So, let them do their primary. We’ll see where they belong. We are waiting for them.