The caretaker chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has said the party is on sabbatical leave from power and will bounce back in 2019.
The PDP lost power to the All Progressives Congress, APC, during the 2015 general elections but it has continued to express optimism that it will reclaim power based on what it considers the poor performance of the governing party.
Mr. Makarfi, who spoke yesterday in Kaduna when Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State paid him a solidarity visit, however, stressed the need for true reconciliation in the PDP.
He said: “We need to reconcile, we need to acknowledge where we went wrong. It is a good virtue to say sorry where you are wrong. It is a good virtue to reconcile. Every day, whether you are a Christian or Muslim, we pray. It is because we knowingly or unknowingly offend our Creator, asking for His forgiveness and reconciling with Him. No doubt, in the cause of events, we must have hurt each other. Why can’t we talk to each other, reconcile with each other and learn from past mistakes”.
Makarfi also apologised to leaders of the party who are still nursing grudges over the outcome of the recently conducted national convention of the PDP in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and urged them to avoid litigations.
“On behalf of all, as chairman of the Caretaker Committee, I wish to apologise to all, from whichever side they belong, who feel hurt by whatever means. Litigation may give you a legal victory, but it will not give you permanent peace and harmony amongst your family”, he said.
Earlier, Gov. Dickson, who doubles as chairman of the PDP National Reconciliation Committee, said he was in Kaduna State to consult with Makarfi “on the way forward for our country”.
The governor also pledged the support of all the party’s governors for the chairman even as he described the former Governor of Kaduna State as a focused, trusted and respected leader.
“All your governors are behind you and I have, in my capacity as Chairman of the National Reconciliation Committee, been in touch with leaders of our party across the length and breadth of our country and one thing everybody says is that, with you as our national chairman, our party has gotten it right”, said Mr. Dickson.
He also sked leaders of the party to refrain from “making legal point out of what is essentially a political misunderstanding within a family. People should resort to political solution and political solution comes by engagement and meetings and interaction of party leaders, not litigation in the law courts. People should refrain from making comments that will not promote the cause of reconciliation”.
