Udom Emmanuel, Governor of Akwa Ibom State, has spoken out about the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Emmanuel expressed optimism on Tuesday that the main opposition party’s internal crisis would be resolved before the 2023 elections.
In an interview with ThisDay, the Chairman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council stated that the party is making progress in resolving the crisis.
He stated that you cannot allow anyone to abandon the party, and that every vote is critical if the PDP is to win the upcoming election.
Udom, who described some of them as “small men” in the party, said they don’t mind prostrating to appeal to the party’s five disgruntled Governors known as the G-5.
He also stated that the party has made mistakes, but he believes that the mistakes will not derail the party.
Speaking during the interview, Emmanuel said;
We are trying to take the right step. That’s why you are asking about a few issues in our party, and I said, of course, we are making progress. We’ll resolve all issues. You can’t let anybody go in an election; every vote matters.
Every single person is important in politics, not to talk of when you’re talking about very big men. Small men like us will go and prostrate ourselves before them: please oh, big men, don’t let us down. I’m into this game to win. I don’t think anybody will get to this point and be doing permutation. What kind of permutation?
But they are not unhappy with me as Udom Emmanuel. Did they tell you they were unhappy with the party? Four of them are candidates of the party. They hold tickets of the party. They’re members of the party; you are getting it wrong.
Even spoons and plates hit themselves and create a lot of noise; that doesn’t mean they’ve broken. It doesn’t mean they’ve broken. I think that is the situation here. The fact that people are unhappy, it is inevitable, definitely inevitable, with a large party like PDP. It is the largest party in the whole of Africa.
So, certainly, we all make mistakes. I must also confess as a party, we’ve made mistakes, and as individuals, we’ve made mistakes. But these mistakes, I can assure you, will not break us. We are trying to come back, review and then reappraise and see how we can move forward, and I can assure you, we’ll do that.
I say I’m not looking at any permutation. I’m going into this (election) with optimism because if I’m going with permutation, it means I shouldn’t be the chairman of the campaign council. I’m going with optimism. I would not have accepted being the chairman if I was not optimistic that I’m going to win. So, we are in the race to win. There’s no permutation in this case at all.