PDP Not Like APC Where Govs ‘More Powerful’ Than The President – Saraki

Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, has dismissed reports that there is division within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the choice of vice-presidential candidate for the 2019 election.

Saraki, who is the Director-General of the Atiku/Obi presidential campaign organisation, said issues regarding the choice of vice-presidential candidate for PDP’s presidential flag-bearer, Atiku Abubakar, had long been sorted before commencement of the party’s campaigns.

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The Senate President stated this while fielding questions from Seun Okinbaloye of Channels TV during an interview that was aired on the television station on Wednesday.

Seun had asked Saraki to respond to reports that governors within the PDP have problems regarding the choice former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, as the party’s VP candidate.

But the Senate President responded: “I think at the initial stage of course there were some issues that came about, particularly as regards the choice of vice president. But in every political party, things like that happen but immediately after that there were discussions that everybody should just move on to work towards a winning the election.”

Asked to comment on criticisms by analysts who believe that the PDP made a mistake by not picking its vice-presidential candidate from the Southwest, Saraki expressed poise that Mr Obi was best for the VP slot.

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“I think the party has a very good choice of a vice-presidential candidate and as I said the party has done that. That is not a problem within the party now,” said the Senate President.

Speaking further, Saraki said reports of division within the PDP are being sponsored by the ruling APC which is relying on “propaganda” to cover up alleged division in its party.

He said, “I think there’s bigger divisions in the other party (the APC) I mean where you have governors in the party saying they’re campaigning for their party for one election and openly saying that they’re campaigning for another party in another election, and that is happening in at least four or five states, now that is huge. I’ve not seen that in our party. I know that there’s no governor in our party who is saying I’m doing PDP for one election and I’m doing another party openly [for another party].

“So in trying to cover that [the division in APC], is all this propaganda that that there’s division in our party. I mean a party where governor’s can be doing that and getting support from the President shows that surely there is a problem, I mean there is a big problem [in the APC]. I’ve never seen it happen before in politics. So that is where there’s a problem within their party but the propaganda machinery is in order to turn your attention away the problem by saying that there’s problem in our party.”

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