The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has expressed his commitment to ensuring that the internal crises rocking the party are resolved .
Atiku also pledged that he would meet the expectations of the party and Nigerians if elected president in 2023.
Atiku made the promise during his remarks at the PDP 97 National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja on Thursday.
He appreciated the NEC members for their support during the party’s convention in May where he emerged as its candidate.
“I cannot thank you enough. My promise is that I will meet your expectations and the expectations of Nigerians.
“Let me also use this opportunity to thank our outgoing BoT Chairman for his services and sense of patriotism for our great party,” Atiku said.
The former vice president also expressed his commitment to ensuring that the internal crisis in the party was resolved.
“Many speakers have alluded to family disagreement, family disagreements are normal even in normal families as well as political families.
“But what I can assure you is that we are determined to resolve those issues internally. There are not really fundamental disagreements, it is normal,” Atiku said.
He appealed to all party members to ensure that challenges were resolved internally within the provisions of the party’s constitution.
“As a political party we have our constitution, our rules and our regulations.
“I want to urge that no matter the level of disagreement, it should be resolved within our constitution, within our rules, within our regulations.
“We have all what it takes to guide us to continue to nurture this political party, to provide a platform for all Nigerians to realise their collective and individual aspirations.
“Therefore, I wish to appeal to all members of our party to make sure that all our disagreements are resolved internally,” he said.
In his remarks, the former President of the Senate and acting Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Adolphus Wabara, urged party members to always control their emotions and ensure disagreements within the party were addressed internally.
“The PDP has an inbuilt mechanism to solve problems. We have done it several times. When people expect us to implode, that is when we become very glorious.
“I want to advise us that we should always debrief ourselves in-house no matter what the anger is; let us debrief ourselves in-house rather than playing to the gallery.
“We should watch and control our utterances because by and large, only God knows tomorrow.
“Because once you voice out something, it is always difficult for you to pick back what you voice out.
“My advice to use is that we should be mature enough to control our temper,” Mr Wabara said.
Earlier, the party’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, said he was happy that PDP is united and Nigerians were enthusiastic about the party in spite of the impression being created by some people.
“I am happy that the Nigerian people are interested in our party. I am interested not because we disagree among ourselves, but in our capacity to deliver and when we take over power.
“We have done it before and I believe that people will also give us their mandates.”
Mr Ayu urged the party to focus on the issues that worried Nigerians including issues of security, education, economy, health, national infrastructure that will help the country to move forward.
