Politicians who left PDP are coming back – Gov Shema on march 24, 2014 at 12:40 am in politics

Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema of Katsina State is a lawyer, former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and a member of the party’s National Executive Committee, NEC. In this interview, he bares his mind on his developmental agenda in Katsina, completion of projects started by his predecessor, late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, 2015 Presidential bid of President Goodluck Jonathan, the crisis in PDP and the way forward. Excerpts: ON the crisis in PDP, which led to the defection of five governors to the APC We have our own challenges, that is not to say other parties don’t have challenges. Ours is obvious because of our size. And in politics, size matters. It is always easy to talk about differences in political parties or even in any organisation, but what people fail to realise is that PDP has succeeded in ruling Nigeria since 1999. There are so many forces. First of all, in capturing power and retaining power, it has succeeded in the first transition from one civil rule to another and yet another and to another. Since independence, PDP is the first party to do this. PDP belongs to Nigerians. That is what people don’t understand. That is why everybody talks about PDP, even non- party members who belong to another party talk about PDP because it is a fully Nigerian party, unlike other parties where you can say that Mr. A owns this party or Mr B owns that party. That is why even the opposition talks about PDP.