•Ayu: PDP has no preferred aspirant
Bauchi State Governor and one of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential hopeful, Senator Bala Mohammed, yesterday, said he was coming into the presidential race with a clean bill of health and as such, challenged the anti-graft agencies to bring forward any corruption charges they might have against him for the period he served, either as senator or minister.
Bala, who started his consultation to contest for president on Tuesday with ex ministers of PDP, threw this challenge to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt and Practices Commission (ICPPC) and other Related at the party’s headquarters, where he addressed members of the national working committee of the party on his intention to contest for president in 2023 on the platform of the PDP.
Bala told the national working committee of the PDP that, “I am offering myself to run for this office, out of the need to serve, because I have served in various level as a media man as a civil servant as a senator, a legislator now as a governor.
“I believe I am one of the best. But I am not found to be one of the best. I am ready to work with anybody that you bring out. That should be understood. I will not call anybody names, I will not underestimate or undermine anybody.
“I will not demean and diminish anybody. Every Nigerian is important. The agenda issues are germane. The youth issues are germane. We cannot ignore the aspirations of the young Nigerians, who may be better positioned to turn around this country.
“At the same time, we cannot discard our old ones. We need experience. We must have a mid cost approach to everything. The country needs rescue. Everything has failed in all ramifications.
“To do it, we must strategise. We have a strategists in you. An accomplished technocrat. An academician, who has done it before you form this party. God has a way of coming back to the people, who pray. We prayed and we came back. I’m not flattering.
“I am not going to be a northern president or a Muslim-Fulani president or a minority president. I am going to be a Nigerian president, who understands the nuances, the norms and the feelings of Nigerians because I have touched them.”
In his response, the National Chairman of PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, said the PDP declared that the party has no preferred presidential candidate for the May 28 primary election, and that the party was well-equiped with qualified aspirants capable to run the affairs of the country successfully.
He said with the crop of aspirants, who have indicated interest to run on the platform of the party, he was confident that the PDP would dislodge the ruling All Progressive Congress(APC) in next year’s general election.
Ayu assured members that the party would afford all aspirants a level playing field to pick a leader, who would connect with Nigerians and bring solution to the adverse poverty, unemployment hunger and insecurity in the country.
“Any of our 17 aspirants will do 1000 times better than what APC has subjected Nigerians to in the last few years. We are happy Nigerians will vote for PDP massively. We are very close to the end point of rescuing this county and it is my prayer that by next year, we will be at eagle square taking over power to redeem this country.
“If it is you, we know that you are eminently qualified. We don’t have a preferred candidate. If we have our way, we would do term sharing for all the aspirants, because you are all eminently qualified.
“We don’t want to dwell on our past, that of what we did. We want to tell Nigerians that we know what you are going through, we know your problems. And PDP will move to tackle those problems. We don’t want to talk about what we did in 16 years,” Ayu said.
