PDP begins reconciliation, Gov Dickson to meet George, Adeniran

Following series of misunderstanding that trailed the just concluded convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the chairman of the Convention Reconciliation Committee and Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has said that the party has reached out to aspirants and party members who were not happy with the outcome of the just concluded convention.

Addressing journalists after its post convention inaugural meeting, Dickson said that the Committee is getting the required cooperation from the aggrieved members, adding that the Committee also intends at the long run to reach out to other members who left the party after the 2015 defeat that the party suffered.

According to him, the consultations have been very positive and the committee intends to pay a visit to the aggrieved members to reconcile them with the party.

He said, “Generally we are pleased with the outcome of the exercise. We have established contacts with some of them who have grievances and we want to interact with all the aspirants to find out what the problems are with a view to promoting understanding.

“We are pleased to announce that our contacts were well received, our overtures were well received. The Committee will undertake several visits to some of our leaders who are aggrieved.”

The governor said that the mandate of the Committee is not to apportion blames, but to heal all the wounds because all the leaders are very important.

He told party leaders to be very cautious with their utterances as it could undermine the reconciliation process.
He said, “We call on all leaders of our party to be careful with the comments they are making. We don’t want a situation where their comments will be inflammatory and misconstrued as negative remarks.

“We assure all of you that these issues and grievances will be looked into. The party is not resting on its oars.”
Dickson reiterated that when one is organising an event of such magnitude, people are bound to be misunderstood but assured that the committee shall address all the issues.

“The committee will address those who for one reason or the other left in the past but that is not our core mandate. We are the parent political party and we are very conscious of that responsibility.

“But our immediate focus is to interact with persons who have expressed concerns on the just concluded convention and we are very passionate about that.”
He noted that Chief Bode George will always remain a pillar in the party and among those leaders that have already expressed concerns on the convention, but informed that the Committee has established interactions with him which is very positive.

Other members of the Committee present at the meeting include the Committees Vice Chairman, Ambassador Aminu Wali, former Minister of Information, Chief John Odey, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, Joy Emordi and others.

Myke Uzendu, Abuja