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A group of former
Peoples Democratic Party members led by the former Speaker of the House
of Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari, who recently defected to the
Congress for Progressive Change, said they will not return to the PDP
despite pressure on them to do so except serious reforms happen in the
party.

Sadiq Abubakar
Yar’Adua, who spoke for the group, said in an interview on Sunday, that
the 12-year-old PDP has abandoned the vision of its founders, noting
that it would be fruitless to return to the party where their efforts
to restore the vision would not be appreciated.

Those who decamped
to the CPC last month, apart from Mr Masari, include former Senate
Leader, Mohammed Liman; former senator Saidu Yandoma as well as some
serving federal and state legislators.

“We cannot return
because the PDP has lost focus. PDP has abandoned the vision of the
founding fathers and we have tried as much as possible to see it
reformed but this has not been appreciated,” Mr Yar’Adua said.

“Some people have
approached us but it is not about ourselves but about the people. If
PDP is willing to reform then we can think of returning.”

He alleged that governors elected on the platform of the PDP have hijacked the party.

Mr Yar’Adua, a
former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign
Affairs, debunked claims in some quarters that the defectors would not
be comfortable in the CPC due to the alleged dictatorial tendencies of
the party’s leader, Muhammadu Buhari.

According to him,
the new party has internal democracy, which he says is lacking in the
PDP, while its programmes are people-oriented.

“CPC is a good
party with ideological direction and its programmes are people-based,”
he said. “We are not strange bed-fellows. There is compatibility
ideologically and the party respects the right of the people. It is not
so in the PDP.”

The former lawmaker
also said the CPC is taking shape everywhere in the northern part of
the country, stressing “very soon, it will be all over Nigeria.”

Rule by law

Meanwhile, the
national leadership of the CPC has assured that the party will rule in
accordance with the provision of the country’s constitution if Mr
Buhari is voted into power next year, spokesman of the party, Dennis
Aghanya, said in Abuja.

Mr. Aghanya said
the party has embarked on interactions with various groups and
individuals in the last few days, adding that during such interactions
some people pledged to support it in the background.

“At some of the
interactive sessions, some of the groups bared their minds on why they
remained on the fence without coming out openly to back any
presidential candidate. They said the candidature of General Buhari
remains the only available option for the country to get it right, but
that the previous elections he won were denied him,” Mr. Aghanya said.

“They expressed the
fear that their open support for him might spell doom for those of them
who are in corporate businesses as the government might chose to
witch-hunt them.”

“General Buhari made it clear to them that sitting on the fence might spell a greater doom for the entire country.

“The government of Muhammadu Buhari, if our party gives him the
ticket to run under the CPC platform, will concentrate on repositioning
the country rather than witch-hunting people based on their past
atrocities.’’