Gombe PDP aspirants warn party leaders on imposition
A group of youths and aspirants under the aegis of Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Gombe State on Thursday, warned the leadership of the party against what they termed as plans to impose unpopular candidates in the forthcoming party primary.
Speaking at a special seminar aimed at sensitising the youths on the forthcoming general election in the country, two PDP aspirants for the state house of Assembly, Benjamin Dangoma and Moses Doro advised the party to learn from past mistakes so that the golden opportunity ahead of it may not slip away.
Dangoma who is aspiring for Billiri West in the state House of Assembly, called on the party to be fair.
“The bottlenecks in the party now is that you suddenly realize that the delegates are no longer in possession of their votes. If you go to lobby or campaign to a delegates in Gombe here or Abuja, they will say go and meet the person that put me here.
“So, the primary is not about the delegates who are going to vote, but about somebody who is sitting at the comfort of his home in Gombe or Abuja that you have to go and seek his support for vote when he is not even the person who is going to vote.”
He said the bottleneck, party leadership is creating is such that create room for manipulation, “and I am not going to accept any form of manipulation.” to
According to him, as an aspirant he has information of plans to impose certain aspirant who is probably not educated as the party flag bearer so that he can be subject to their control.
Also, another PDP aspirant, Moses Doro contesting for Billiri East candidate said the youths should be encouraged to participate actively in party politics, adding that they would bring the much needed change.
“The place of the youths is no longer appreciated, the youths are not given the mandate to lead. So we are trying to see how our elders and political fathers can look into this and make sure that youths are given quality representation,” he said.
On his part, Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, youths wing, Billiri local government, Bulus Ngabas said he would prefer the youths to represent the Local Government and indeed the state and the nation in the coming general election because of their number.
He said over the years, youths in the country have been shortchanged by the leaders resulting in the myriads of crisis, insecurity and others bedeviling the country.
Nagabas called on the youths to be actively involved in politics and stop seeing it as a dirty since decisions made by politicians will definitely affect their lives.
Speaking earlier, The organiser of the programme and coordinator of Not Too Young to Run, Bachama Yusuf said the purpose of the gathering is to encourage youths participation in politics.
“At this point, we are trying to see how aspirants will avail themselves what the feelings are from young people and also let young people know what aspirants are facing in politics. Many aspirants are facing a lot of challenges, these many young people may not know. So we share our experiences, put them together and agreed on how best we can support them to emerge winners in the coming general election,” he said.
