The newly-appointed acting Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed, on Sunday appealed to members and supporters of the party to stop the blame game over the party’s recent electoral loss to the All Progressives Congress (APC). 
  Mohammed pledged to partner with the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to return PDP to the grassroots.
  In a statement issued and made available to us by his Special Assistant on Media, Emeka Kanu-Nwapa, the PDP BoT chairman, while addressing scores of leaders and members of the party who paid him solidarity visits from across the country following his recent appointment, stressed that rather than dissipate energy on blaming and pointing fingers at one another over the outcome of the recent general elections, they should brace up, close ranks and devise workable ways and means of reinventing the party as a true national party which many Nigerians have known since 1999.
Waxing philosophical, he said what happened during the last elections was not as important as the aftermath, contending that “what happens when a man falls is not as important as what he does after the fall.”
Mohammed argued that the 2015 election was PDP’s defining moment which was only capable of bending it but cannot break it.
According to the statement, the former defence minister said: “This is not the time for finger-pointing and apportioning blames. This is the time to overlook the shortcomings of one another and look at the positive side so that we can put our wisdom together and move the party forward in furtherance of the excellent democratic profile which our great party has earned among Nigerians over the years.”
He emphasised that time had come to take the party back to the people at the grassroots where it was rooted, pointing out that that is the only veritable means of reconnecting the party with the people particularly those who left it after feeling disgruntled at the way they were treated and handled.
The PDP chieftain who led PDP to win the 2011 presidential election as the acting national chairman further said the BoT, under his watch, would work closely and harmoniously with the party’s NWC to drive the party in the direction that gives opportunity to all members to contribute meaningfully to the process of reinventing the party in line with the dream of its founding fathers.
“There will be a deliberate and conscious effort at working closely and harmoniously with the NWC because we don’t want a situation where we create a sense of rivalry. This distinction is very important. We shall work with the NWC and advise appropriately on the way forward aimed at devising schemes and strategies capable of bringing the party to its full glory,” the statement quoted the BoT chairman as saying.
Urging all party members and loyalists to make themselves available for the urgent task ahead, he expressed optimism that the revitalised PDP would offer an opposition platform that is creative, credible, corrective and supportive in the propagation of excellent democratic norms for the collective benefit of Nigeria and its good people.
“We shall therefore continue to give true meaning and essence of opposition because ours will not be opposition for opposition’s sake. We shall have no space for red-herring or rumour-mongering because this nation is bigger than that. Whenever we see the government derailing or faltering, we shall draw their attention in the interest of the collective good. With diligence, we will offer an alternative platform for the Nigerian people to choose in 2019,” Mohammed said.