The defeated aspirant for the chairmanship of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Bamanga Tukur, has described the just concluded North-east zonal congress where a consensus candidate was chosen as a charade.
Mr Tukur, a candidate preferred by President Goodluck Jonathan and other senior members of the party was on Wednesday defeated at the North-east zonal congress, which took place in Bauchi.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Channels Television in Abuja, the aspirant said even though the attempt was democratic, the attempt was not properly done. “As far as I am concerned it was not done the way it should be, but it always like that in party administration” he said.
Reacting to the result of the congress, Mr Tukur stated that he is not disturbed by the charade which he claims was wrongly conducted. “I am not disturbed at all. I just think it is a charade.”
“People do things but sometimes they do it wrongly. What they have done, they have done it wrongly. There is no way people can go into a room and decide without bringing in those involved and without bringing those who ought to be without any criteria and say they have got a candidate to present” he said.
Mr Tukur was defeated at the congress by the party’s acting National Secretary, Musa Babayo who emerged as the consensus candidate for the chairmanship of the party which has been zoned to the area.
He further described the congress as democracy at work while also criticising his party members saying, “If anything at all I feel ashamed that members of my party at that level can really decide to this kind of thing. I am not disturbed at all, I think it is okay. That is what they call democracy at work, let everybody compete but let it be open and a level opening field and we practise what we preach and that is openness.”
This is not the right way to do it and now it just underscore why people like us want to go into this party.
Despite the loss, Mr Tukur stated that he believe the outcome of that event will not affect his aspiration to emerge as the next national chairman of the largest party in the country.
