Lagos Central Senatorial District Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Hakeem Olalemi, has said the outcome of the party’s recent National Executive Council (NEC) meeting shows that the party is mature, strong and indivisible.
Olalemi made the statement in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.
He said the outcome was proof that the party was one big family and that stakeholders were committed to its progress.
Olalemi commended party leaders, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers, on their conduct at the meeting.
According to him, the way all pending issues affecting the party were resolved at the special meeting means that PDP is back to winning ways.
“Our party is back to winning ways with what happened at the last NEC. With the fallout,PDP has proven to be strong and indivisible.What we are trying to do is that, we don’t want any breakout, we want one PDP.
“That is why we have been able to manage our crisis very well. We can see that the party leaders know how to resolve problems.
“The committees set up are to bring everybody back to the mainstream of the party. So,looking at the outcome of the meeting I can tell you that PDP is back to winning ways,” Olalemi said.
The chieftain said that through the NEC meeting, the party had put machinery in place to resolve all pending crises ahead of the 2027.
He called on all party stakeholders to exhibit maturity and selflessness to make the party stronger.
Olalemi said: “PDP is a party of structure and we are not ready to continue to do the same thing, same way, we are not ready to continue to reduce the structure in any way.
“The outcome of NEC has shown there is maturity in the Peoples Democratic Party. You can see that Atiku and Wike sat next to each other.
“It shows that in PDP, we have ways of resolving our issues, we have ways of bringing ourselves together and we have started resolving the issues.
“PDP has its internal mechanism to settle any kind of problem and the ball has been set rolling by constituting the reconciliation committee and the disciplinary committee as well.So we have ways of resolving our internal issues.”
He said that the maturity among PDP stakeholders averted rancour at the NEC meeting.
The party chieftain also said that the decision of NEC to return Damagum as the Acting National Chairman was the best at the moment ,pending the election of a substantive chairman from the North Central.
NAN recalls that the 98th National Executive Committee meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party held on Thursday at the NEC Hall of the party’s national secretariat, Wadata Plaza, Abuja.
Present at the meeting were the Acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, who also chaired the meeting; a former Vice President and PDP 2023 presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; and a former Vice President, Namadi Sambo
Others included Gov. Bala Mohammed (Bauchi State); Gov.Seyi Makinde (Oyo State); Gov.Ahmed Fintiri (Adamawa); Gov.Ademola Adeleke (Osun ); Gov.Sim Fubara (Rivers); Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and former Rivers Gov. Nyesom Wike.