National Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Olisah Metuh on Thursday said the party will become stronger with the exit of disloyal members.
Metuh im a statement faulted the public branding of the cross carpeting of a group of former members to the All Progressive Congress as a merger, saying the information “is false and is intended to mislead the public”.
Part of the statement read: “What happened was not a merger. You can only talk of a merger where there were two distinct parties. In this case there is only one party, the All Progressive Congress, APC. The so called nPDP was never a party.
“This was established on October 10th 2013 when a Lagos High Court gave judgment against the nPDP and on the 11th of October 2013 when the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, wrote the nPDP to say that the AlhajiBamanga Turkur led Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is the only recognized party by that name.
“From the above, it is quite clear that there hasn’t been a merger but an opportunistic cross carpeting of disloyal elements into the All Progressive Congress.
“The fact that the President, Dr. GoodluckEbele Jonathan, agreed to dialogue with this group is because of the magnanimity and large heart of a leader who has demonstrated time and again that he is the epitome of humility and a father to all members of the PDP and indeed all Nigerians who is willing to go the extra mile in engendering reconciliation. It does not mean that this was a group recognized by law.
“Furthermore, the repudiation of the action of these fringe elements by some who had associated with them betrays the fact that this was a rushed action motivated by blind ambition and vain glory.
“And lest anyone thinks that the Peoples Democratic Party is diminished because of the departure of people who were in reality fifth columnists we would like to draw attention to the fact that a tree that has been pruned of its under performing branches grows better and blossoms with new life. This is the case in biology as well as in politics.
“As for the All Progressive Congress, we congratulate them on their new entrants, but we also like to recommend to them the wise words of ChinuaAchebe from his seminal work ‘Things Fall Apart’. Said Achebe ‘a man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain if he is visited by lizards’.
“The Peoples Democratic Party is losing no sleep with this cross carpeting because disloyalty is a habit and it’s only a matter of time before men who are disloyal to their mother would become disloyal to their step mother”.