Wike urges PDP to reconcile with aggrieved members

Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and a leading figure in the Peoples Democratic Party, has called on the party’s leadership to launch an urgent reconciliation drive, assuring members who departed amid internal crises that their entitlements remain intact and that the door is open for their return.

Wike made the appeal on Monday at the 108th National Executive Committee meeting of the party held at Wadata Plaza, Abuja, where he urged the national chairman to constitute a strong outreach committee to engage aggrieved members across the country.

“There is room for them to come back, and whatever is due to them will still be given,” the former Rivers State governor said, arguing that many who left the party did so not out of conviction but out of uncertainty and the search for political shelter.

He warned that the party could ill afford to allow festering internal divisions to erode its competitiveness ahead of future elections, stressing that crisis alone was not the problem but the failure to resolve it swiftly and decisively.

“In life, there must be a period of crisis. What matters is how we resolve the crisis. Now that we are together, we must not stop at reconciliation,” Wike said.

Despite widely reported tensions within the PDP over recent years, Wike emphatically ruled out any possibility of his own exit, invoking his nearly three-decade membership of the party.

“I have been a member of this party since 1998 and I will not leave. Whatever happens, we will continue to live as members of the PDP,” he declared.

He also called for greater transparency in the conduct of party affairs, saying openness was essential to rebuilding the confidence of members who had drifted away. “If you engage them, they will understand and support the party,” he said.

Earlier at the same meeting, PDP National Chairman Abdulrahman Mohammed struck an optimistic tone, declaring an end to the prolonged period of instability that had unsettled the party’s rank and file.

He pledged that the party would strictly comply with the Electoral Act and the guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission in conducting its congresses at all levels.

“The era of uncertainty is behind us. The era of strategy, consultation, and electoral preparation has begun,” Mohammed said.

Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa, added his voice to the calls for cohesion, warning that exclusion had no place in a party seeking to reclaim national relevance.

He urged members to set aside personal grievances, adhere strictly to the party’s constitution, and commended internal reform measures including an e-registration initiative aimed at strengthening the party’s organisational base.