President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday vowed that the Peoples Democratic Party would recapture Edo and Rivers States in the 2015 and 2016 general and governorship elections in the two states.
President Jonathan disclosed this at the PDP South-South unity rally held at the Samule Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin, Edo State capital.
Present at the rally were the governors of Cross River, Delta, Bayelsa and Abia states.
Also present were the Senate President, David Mark, Senator Udoma Egba, Ministers from the South-South and top functionaries of the party.
The president stated that all the states in the South-South geo-political zone were dominated by the PDP at the inception of democratic governance in the country and the party would do all it could to get the states back under its leadership.
Jonathan said, “For South-South, at the beginning this democracy, on May 29, 1999, when I took the oath of office, as a Deputy Governor, the whole South-South was PDP; from Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, we were all PDP.
“But today, two states have ‘K’ legs. But from 2015 to 2016, we will get all our states back.”
He explained that the rally was not organised as a political campaign but as an avenue to unite members of the PDP from Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Rivers states ahead of the 2015 presidential elections and beyond.
The President commended members of the party in Edo and Rivers, currently dominated by the All Progressives Congress, for remaining faithful to the party despite the situation in their states of origin.
He officially welcomed a former leader of the APC and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Tom Ikimi, and other former members of the APC, including national and State Assembly members, back into the fold of the party.
He stated that their defection from the APC to the PDP meant that “the last offspring has been removed,” adding that all would be treated equally and given “freedom.”
