How PDP can sack APC

Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, has said
the only way the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
can wrest power from the All Progressives
Congress (APC) is to entrench internal
democracy.
Besides, he said party leaders must obey and
abide by the rules of the party even as he
advocated the abolition of delegate system to
conduct primaries in the selection of candidates.
He canvassed a review of the PDP constitution to
facititate open congress, empowering all
registered PDP members to vote and select their
candidates.
Nnamani disclosed this in a paper he was sched­
uled to deliver at the recent PDP Rebrand Forum
held in Abuja. He urged members to stop the
blame game over the party’s loss of last election.
Instead, Nnamani said they should take a bold
step towards reinventing itself by avoiding
mistakes that caused it the trust of the
electorate.
He said: “Many of the people who are very
pained that we lost the presidential election have
needlessly been blaming ourselves. This blame
game should not continue. We lost the election
because we deserved to lose. We had run out of
policy gas. We worked hard to lose the election.”
He said: “Now it is time for renewal and renewal
requires strategic thinking and bold actions. Many
years ago, I worked with some of my colleagues
in the PDP and we foresaw this moment. We
predicted that the PDP needed to keep faith with
its cardinal principles and values to sustain its
leadership of Nigerian politics. How I wished our
other colleagues listened to us in those days. We
would have averted the disaster of the 2015
electoral defeat. Some of those who contributed
immensely to the PDP electoral defeat shouted
us down and refused to hear our voice of
wisdom. This is past now. There is no time for
recrimination and self-adulation. It is time for
clarity and effective action.
“It is time for genuine embrace of internal democ­
racy. The new PDP should become the symbol of
internal democracy. Our rebranding should first
start with a real commitment to internal
democracy. I suggest that before we go further
on this journey let all those who desire to lead
PDP in formal or informal positions of authority
publicly declare a new code of conduct. The
heart of this code of conduct will be an oath to
always promote and protect internal democracy.
“Beyond the code, the new PDP must put in its
constitution expulsion for any party official at all
levels who deliberately subverts the process of
internal democracy. Impunity must end now.
“As a leader of the proscribed PDP Reform Fo­
rum, I took the clear position that we must be a
party ruled by law not by men. I have long known
that a rule-based system is superior to a
discretion-based system. Godfatherism is a weak
framework to build a system that can deliver its
mandate. The weight of contradiction of reckless
abandonment of our core values and rules is
what has drowned the ship of PDP in the waters
of Nigerian politics,” Nnamani said.