The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has said the party didn’t prepare for defeat in the last general elections.
The defeat was the first to be suffered by the party, which had been controlling the government at the centre since the country returned to democracy in 1999.
Apart from losing the presidential election to the All Progressives Congress, the PDP was also defeated in many states which it had been controlling for 16 years.
Speaking in his office in Abuja on Tuesday, when the Resident Country Director of International Republican Institute, Mr. Senten Barnes, paid him a courtesy call at the party national secretariat, the Acting Chairman of the now opposition party, Prince Uche Secondus, said the defeat came to the PDP as a surprise.
He said, “We were so used to winning in the last 16 years. We never prepared for defeat and so when it came, we were surprised.
“Now, we should know that money is not everything. Then we were wrong. Selling of documents (by workers of the party) should stop.
“The party will train staff in collaboration with IRI, and our workers must be careful against the sale of document to outsiders.
“The party must now go to the people. We need serious training with the direction of the director of administration. We would work with the IRI for the training.”
The chairman also stressed that the era of automatic tickets for aspirants vying for elective positions was over.
Secondus said the decision to embark on biometric membership registration had shown that the era of few money bags controlling the party had become a thing of the past.
He urged members to pay their dues as the party leadership had decided to take PDP back to the people.
He said, “The era of ‘automatic tickets, no vacancy’ is over as this is not in our constitutions.
“We want to eliminate influence or what’s called money bags. In Kogi, the governor was threatened by other aspirants. There would be no automatic tickets for anybody.”
He vowed that the national leadership of the opposition party would return the party to the people by organising error-free primaries.
He also said the party would not be financed by individuals anymore.
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