Worried, 13 PDP gov aspirants kick against Ortom’s return

Apparently worried about the alleged plan by the Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom to return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), 13 governorship aspirants on the platform of the party in 2019, have begun to complains.

The PDP governorships aspirants expressed their worries during a press conference on Monday in Abuja, claiming that Ortom has become a liability having been unable to pay salaries of workers in the state in the past 14 months.

While they argued that they were not opposed to people returning to the party, the aspirants however noted that they were against the return of people with negative values.

The aspirants, who gathered under the aegis of Forum of Governorship Aspirants, vowed to resist any attempt to shortchange the party’s state executive and to truncate the internal democratic process that has characterised the Benue chapter of the party in the past few years.

In his argument, one of the aspirants, John Tondu, said that Ortom currently has no electoral value to make the PDP the party to beat, adding that “the governor of Benue State today is a liability, not an asset. He is not welcome.

“Because of the love we have for the people of Benue state, anything that will cripple our plan to take over the state should not be tolerated.”

Speaking in the same direction, Dr. Terhemen Tarzoor, the state PDP governorship candidate in the 2015 governorship election, said that Ortom, having been shown the ‘red card’ by the All Progressives Congress (APC), that the governor’s credibility has reached an all-time low.

“We are sensitive to the value and character of the people joining the PDP. We won’t sit down and watch people of negative value join the party; someone who has not paid salaries for one year and four months. When a person is chased out of a party, it speaks much about that person and what he represents,” he said.

The forum’s chairman, Professor David Ker, called on the state chapter of the party to walk in fidelity with its promise of free and fair primaries, as anything short of that would spell doom for the PDP.

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He said, “We reiterate that a level playing field for a free, fair and transparent primary election which has been promised us by the Benue state leadership of the PDP remains the only option by which the party could credibly and successfully nominate a governorship candidate in the 2019 governorship election if indeed the party is serious at recapturing power from the present APC-controlled government in the state.

“While we may not oppose any group or individuals from joining and participating in the affairs of the party in the state, we are strongly opposed to a purported unilateral decision to dissolve the executives of the party at all levels in the state to accommodate or give undue advantage to any group or person angling to join the party.”

He also warned that all form of imposition would be “resisted by all of us, the 13 governorship aspirants.”

 

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