The Board of Trustees, BOT, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said it has commenced the search for its presidential candidate in 2019.
The BOT also said prominent members of the party who left will soon return.
The BOT chairman, Walid Jibrin, said this on Tuesday in Abuja while receiving members of PDP Ward-Ward group, at the Legacy House located at the Maitama District of Abuja.
Mr. Jibrin also said those who left the party in the build up to the 2015 general elections would soon return.
Describing the return of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to the PDP as a good omen for the party, he said the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Sokoto State Governor, Waziri Tambuwal, and others would return to the party in no distant time.
“All of us as a party, we agreed that the president of Nigeria should come from the North. I enjoin you to support the North to give you a very capable president, not a no-do-well president but a good and qualitative president.
“We are all doing what we can in the North with all the leaders to identify who is the best candidate to rule this country; the best person that will take away power from the ruling party because 2019 is our own, 2019 is for the PDP.
“The bad omen we have experienced in the past through artificial tsunami will not repeat itself. Those who were moved by that tsunami have already gone. The coming of Atiku back to this party, whether we like it or not, is a good omen for the party.
“When Atiku left the APC, he did it peacefully unlike some others, when they left our party, they tore our party card (in veiled reference to former President Olusegun Obasanjo). Atiku didn’t do that and that was why I congratulate the APC because Atiku left their party without tearing their card.
“…We are therefore calling on the Senate President Saraki, Kwankwaso and all our former legislators who have left this party to come back quickly,” the party chieftain said.
The chairman also said that the BOT has set up a nine-member committee led by a former senate president, David Mark, to reconcile members of the board over the outcome of its December 9 national convention. He said the reconciliation committee led by Governor Seriake Dickson was the “main reconciliation team.”
The group, led by Ada Okwori, said it had come to introduce itself to the BOT chairman. It said its members across states are working to ensure power returns to the party in 2019.
