One of the aspirants for the national chairmanship position of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has regretted that those he described as selfish ambitious leaders have retarded the vision of the founding fathers of the party.
Dokpesi, who spoke during the week at the PDP secretariat in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, said: “selfish ambitions of some leaders of the party have retarded the vision, which led to the eventual loss of power to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections.”
He lamented that the original idea of the founding fathers of the PDP was to lay a foundation of a party that would serve as an umbrella for all Nigerians, not minding their tribes and class.
Dokpesi regretted that along the line, the party made a lot of mistakes, especially in the 16 years it occupied the Presidency, from 1999 to 2015.
Dokpesi said: “today, the PDP is described as the most corrupt party in the country; they said our leaders are clueless and corrupt. That was how they described former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“By the special grace of God, we cannot sit back and allow the country to continue to decline. We cannot sit back without giving the APC good opposition, we cannot sit back and not rebrand, re-energize and revitalise the PDP so that by 2019, we can give the APC a purposeful opposition and contest as a party in order to win the next presidential election.”
While canvassing for support in the forthcoming national convention of the PDP, Dokpesi said that the PDP had the capacity to rebuild itself to give Nigerian youths another opportunity achieve their dreams.
“I believe the youths should be given the opportunity to run this country. It is my desires for us to have leaders at all levels below 45 years, while elder statesmen will sit back and give them direction.” [myad]
