2007: PDP yet to lift campaign ban �Dan Musa
By Abdu Labaran
The chairman of the Reform Committee of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Iro Abubakar Dan Musa, has said that the party was yet to lift the ban on campaign for 2007 for its aspirants, insisting that it is still too early to start focusing on the next general elections.
He told Daily Trust in Abuja yesterday that one of the briefs of the PDP reform committee was to examine the propriety of endorsing early campaign for 2007 when elected office holders have still more than two years of their mandate to run.
Describing early campa-ign as an “unnecessary nuis-ance” Alhaji Danmusa expla-ined that the inauguration of the 36 member reform comm-ittee did not in anyway mean the lifting of the ban of political campaign noting that at the appropriate time the party “will do what needs to be done regarding 2007 campaign.” “I think anybody who believes that the inaug-uration of the committee represents a nod by the party for 2007 campaign to start must have read the purpose of setting up the committee upside down. Starting camp-aign so early is too expensive and is also interfering with governance,” he stated.
The committee chairman, who is also a member of the PDP’s board of trustees, also dismissed as nonsense, insinuations that the reform committee is raised to promote one of the party’s nu-merous presidential aspi-rants saying that nothing can be further from the truth.
“How can a committee, whose membership numb-ering up to 36 is drawn from major stakeholders of the party, be able to work for one particular aspirant?
“We have representatives of the presidency, we have representatives of the Nati-onal Working Committee (NWC), there are represe-ntatives of the National Executive Committee (NEC), representatives of the senate, the House of Representatives, representatives from the party’s Board of Trustees (BOT), representatives of the governors, representatives of women and representatives of youths. So for goodness sake, how can such a committee work for any particular person? He queried.
According to him, the political pedigree and caliber of most of the members of the reform committee should be enough to reassure Nigerians of the noble intention behind raising the committee dismis-sing skeptisms about it as unfounded.
Describing Nigerians as incurable skeptics who alwa-ys read “sinister motives behind any programme or policy” Alhaji Danmusa, who is a former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said that the PDP on its own volition realized the need to reform itself, hence the setting up of the comm-ittee.
“The party has realized that there are problems, like the problem of indiscipline, the problem of the functio-nality of the organs of the party and so many others. The reason for the committee is really to restructure the party and reposition the PDP for the task ahead. No more no less, he declared.
Alhaji Danmusa added that any of the PDP’s aspirants who thought that the committee will do his bidding should prepare himself for a shock as, according to him, “members of the committee will not pander to the dictates or whims of any aspirant,” but will do their job without fear of favour.”
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