A former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr. Ahmadu Ali has seen his party as a contending force for power in 2019, but said Nigerians will vote for President Muhammadu Buhari if he decides to present himself for another term in office.
He stated that though Nigerians are currently criticising Buhari over his performance in office so far, they will be singing his praise a year from now as they would have forgotten their present complaints by then.
Speaking with Saturday Sun, the Director-General of the Goodluck Jonathan/Mohammed Sambo Presidential Campaign Organisation in 2015, said:
“Buhari’s performance that you are criticizing now, give him another year, you will be singing his praise.
“As far as Nigeria is concerned, they have forgotten the past, they will vote for him unless he is not standing. If Buhari is standing in 2019, people will vote for him.”
Explaining why he sees the possibility of Buhari’s victory in 2019 despite the present cries of Nigerians about hardship, Ali said:
“in order to get something good, you have to do a radical surgery, that radical surgery the pain is what we are suffering from; I am telling you when the pains heal and we start enjoying the surgery that was put in place, we will be ready to vote again if it is the same Buhari because they will say if things go wrong, he knows how to fix it.”
Ali, who noted that his party will be up against an uphill task if Buhari “continues to perform well and he wants to come back”, stated that such does not mean the PDP cannot defeat the President, adding that, “after all he defeated us so we should be able to defeat him.”
He went on to blame the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, for the current leadership squabble in the PDP, stressing that their plan is to disorganize the opposition so the party in power can have peace.
He continued that the current crisis rocking the former ruling party was also caused by western powers who are envious of PDP’s record of governing Nigeria for 16 uninterrupted years.
The former minister stated that the forces, who he called enemy outside Nigeria, believe that leaving the PDP to continue in power after 16 years, will make it grow into an impossible party which cannot be manipulated.
His words,
“The PDP imbroglio is most unfortunate but it is all within the realm of politics. If APC finds that they are not performing excellently well and we who can claim to be experts in running the country for 16 years are now outside government and we keep criticizing, the best thing is to find a way of disorganising us and they succeeded in disorganising us.
“And again our friends, the enemy outside Nigeria who believed that the PDP has broken such a record in the governance of Nigeria… 16 years uninterrupted… one political party… it has never happened in Nigeria.
“So they believed that leaving the PDP to continue in that run, they will end up to become an impossible party that they cannot manipulate, like the Gulf Party of the Arabs where they had to destroy Saddam and everybody to disorganize the region,” the ex-PDP chairman said.