A presidential aspirant of the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Kabiru Turaki, SAN, has said the party is searching for a consensus candidate towards the 2019 presidential election.
He said the possibility would not be ruled out as the party is presently parading quality materials that were capable of returning the country to the path of greatness and reverse the dangerous trend of the present administration.
The former minister stated this in Lokoja, the Kogi state capital, during his meeting with stakeholders of the party as the primaries to elect the presidential candidates of parties to draw near.
Mr Turaki said, “I am not overruling the possibility of a consensus emerging within the PDP family of presidential aspirants and I have said it that we have been talking to each other, we have been talking to ourselves, that is the first step of getting to that point.
“We now have gotten to the level where we understand ourselves, we have gotten to the level where all of us have agreed that we should subordinate our private interest to the national interest, all of us have agreed that it is only one person that will do it and all of us have agreed and are conscious of the fact that power comes from God.
“We have resolved and resolute that whosoever among us that gets it, others will follow him religiously because we believe that any one of us that is now aspiring to get the ticket, once elected, will perform 1000 times better than what the APC led federal government is doing today and that shall be a blessing for Nigeria.”
The presidential hopeful, however, regretted that the country is in its present position despite the many promises made by the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari, in the build-up to the 2015 general election.
He stated that the APC led federal government had failed in the three major areas of security, economy and fight against corruption with which it “deceived” the people to vote for it in 2015.
According to him, Nigeria is in very unusual time, saying the last three years of the government of APC had shown that it lacked the necessary leadership and administrative qualities needed to make Nigeria great.
Mr Turaki added that the Boko Haram insurgents that the present administration claimed to have defeated had continued to maim and operated freely in the northeast region of the country.
He added that it was unfortunate that despite the continued increase in the casualties from the farmers/herders clashes, the federal government had not arrested anybody for prosecution in connection with the crime.
The PDP chieftain also criticised Buhari for his failure to keep many of the promises he made during electioneering, saying this had shown that he is not a trustworthy leader.
He said, “President Buhari said if he wins he will not go abroad for medical treatment, but he became president, what do we have? If he has an ordinary headache, he heads to London, if he has a fever, it is London, even when he has an ordinary hear problem he was flown to London.
“He said he would scrap the office of the first lady but what do we have today, billions of naira is being allocated to that office, he said if he becomes president he will make the value of naira and dollar to be same, has he done that? There are a lot of failed promises by this present APC government and that is the reason Nigerians have resolved to kick them out.”
The director general of the campaign organisation and a former governor of Adamawa state, Boni Haruna, said the group was serious about getting the ticket of the PDP and winning the presidential election.
He said, “We have brought a product that is reliable and sellable, we are not supposed to go for better when we have the best, we gave an aspirant who has capacity, integrity, character and is resourceful.”
