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Bode George asked aggrieved PDP members not to split the party.
A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Olabode George, has urged members of the party to drop their grievances and unite in the interest of the party and the nation.
Mr. George, who addressed journalists in Lagos on Friday, urged them to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and pass a vote of confidence on it.
The PDP has been split into two factions since its national convention held on August 31 in Abuja.
“I am requesting that our leaders should also endorse the last mini-convention of 2013 as the best that our party has ever had in the history of our great party.
“We can only arrive at that progressive destination of a united and unbroken people when we are all willing to make sacrifices. My passionate appeal to everyone now is that we must not point fingers of wrongs or rights.
“The government at the centre belongs to us all as PDP members and as citizens of this nation,” he said.
Mr. George said that no matter the degree of the grievances, members must strengthen the government that they voted for and not to pull it down.
He said that while there was nothing wrong in pointing out the errors in the party, members must not reduce themselves to “destructive brinksmanship, but focus on rectifying the identified wrongs’’.
He urged members to focus on healing the broken places, resolve on finding an equitable balance, and maneuver toward peace and compromise as well as be committed to selflessness and sacrifice.
“We must be willing to yield to reason and rationality. We must eschew hate and bitterness. That is the way of participatory democracy.
“Democracy is never a zero-sum game. It is never about some autocratic dominance of thought or some sweeping prevailing of a grim absolute value.
“It is about the shared collective interests, the balancing of multiple articulations, the gradual, deliberate maneuvering toward the middle-ground, the painstaking aggregation of views and positions in the management of statecraft,” he said.
The former party leader, who was convicted of corruption for his role while serving as chairman of the Board of the Nigeria Ports Authority, said it was normal to have grievances in a party as large as the PDP; but that such could be resolved.
“This is what makes democracy richer and stronger than any other form of government. As we contest and disagree, we are all obliged to be guided by the ultimate caution.
“We do not burn and destroy and bring down the roof simply because we feel aggrieved. That is not the way of democratic tenets,” he said.
Mr. George also advised members to weigh their options against the ultimate good of the nation.
He said that in spite its imperfections, “PDP held this nation together longer than any other party in the tumultuous history of our nation.
“This means, we must surely be doing something right. Let us support and strengthen our party and our government.
“That is the way of survival. That is the way of progress. It shall be well with Nigeria,” he said.
Mr. George, however, urged PDP leaders to pass an “emphatic vote of confidence on President Goodluck Jonathan’’, who is the party’s national leader and symbol of Nigeria’s unity and great possibilities.
He also described Mr. Jonathan as “an instinctive gentleman, humble and refined, committed to building bridges across the vast divides of our great nation’’.
He noted that PDP had survived all challenges for more than 15 years now.
Mr. George cautioned members “to be wary of agent-provocateurs and political moles who will want to sow the seeds of discord in our midst, for their personal interest’’.
(NAN)
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