A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Lagos, Dr Adetokunbo Pearse says there is still hope for the main opposition party in Nigeria.
Pearse, who was also a member of the Atiku Abubakar 2023 presidential campaign council, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday that things were not as bad as they were being made to look in the party.
He said: “PDP is not done yet. It is not over for PDP in Nigeria. When you look at the national landscape, PDP remains very strong number two at the National Assembly.
“APC has about 20 governors, we have about 14 governors while other parties have two.
“If we go to the National Assembly, we are very strong number two with maybe 38 per cent to 40 per cent of members.”
Pearse, however, said the PDP’s strength in Lagos state is a different issue, as the Labour Party had displaced the PDP to emerge a distant number two to the ruling APC.
“We have lost a lot of ground in Lagos,” Pearse who was a former PDP national chairmanship aspirant and gubernatorial candidate in Lagos state said.
Pearse, however, said the fortune of PDP would be revived once the party completed her mid-term congress for the emergence of substantive national leadership.
“Part of our problems now is that we don’t have a substantive national chairman. We really don’t have a party leader, that is the problem.
“Once we get a substantive national chairman in our mid-term congress, the party will move forward,” he said.
He urged the party to be more aggressive in constructive criticisms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Pearse said that though the PDP’s national secretariat was doing a bit of this, all the state chapters of the party should be doing the same and be more aggressive about it to give life to the main opposition party.
“We must be speaking on behalf of the people. It is the opportunity to make the party look good.
“All the flaws of the incumbent, we can expose and tell the people what the party will do if allowed to represent them.
“We should just keep hope alive, keep getting ready and planning toward the 2027 general elections,” he said.