National chairman-elect of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Iyorchia Ayu has pledged his readiness to diversify funding options for the party, to make it self reliant in the running of its affairs.
Ayu stated this in his Abuja residence yesterday, while playing host to a handful of journalists in his first media parley since his election last week.
The former Senate President dismissed claims in some quarters that the PDP has been solely funded by its governors over the years, adding that when the party was formed in 1998, it had no governors until much later.
He said: “We will diversify our funding. It is something we are going to discuss as a party. We will look into it and hopefully, will come out with ways of strengthening the funding of our own activities. So, rest assure that the PDP will not only be democratic in its politics but it will also be democratic in its funding processes.
“When we formed the PDP, there were no governors. In 1998, there were no governors. There were so many financiers of the party. The people who formed the party contributed to stabilize the party. We didn’t have governors. The governors came after the party was formed and many of the people who became governors had no money to run the party. Contributions were made.
“Even the N1 million form that they (governors) had to buy in 1999, it’s people who contributed and paid for them. What has happened over the years is that we now had governors, we had the President, the federal government. The governors, President and so forth, made contributions to the party but other people were still contributing to the party.”
In a reference to the African National Congress, ANC, which boasts of financial stability, Senator Ayu noted that though the South Africa’s political behomoath may have been founded in 1912, it is still being funded by some of the leaders who rode on its plaftorm to power.
“Comparing us to the ANC is a little bit unfair because ANC is over a hundred years old. The party has evolved and they evolved in struggle. ANC is a party that evolved, fighting apartheid in South Africa. They didn’t depend only on just those businesses you referred to.
“They had massive contributions from outside. Even the Nigerian government gave a lot of money to the ANC and many other people who supported anti-apartheid struggle. Even I as a student in the 70s, participated in anti-apartheid struggles. We contributed, raised money and donated same to ANC.
“The PDP will try to look into other sources of funding instead of depending on just a few financiers. We have contributions from other supporters of the party which normally people don’t know. There is this misconception that only the governors are funding the party. We have only 13 governors. They cannot possibly fund the party in 36 states of the federation including Abuja,” he added.
He further noted that the task of taking over power particulaly at the centre in 2023 is one his administration would focus on from day one, saying “my priority is for the party to take over power. Political parties’ priorities is always to win. Therefore, I have reviewed the reasons we lost power in 2015 and I’m going to work to unite the party, to sharpen the programmes of the party, market the party to the Nigerian electorate in a way that they will be prepared to vote for us.”