Real cause of PDP’s fall – Sen. Bassey

By Isa Isawade

Senator Gershom Bassey has revealed the real reason for the multi-faceted crises that have rocked the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), once described as the biggest party in Africa, leading to its continued drift.

Bassey put the blame squarely on what he called deviation from the principles of its founding fathers.

Bassey, a member of the 9th Assembly, representing Cross River South at the upper chamber, stated this during an interactive session with newsmen on Wednesday in Calabar.

He also stated that the Cross River chapter of the party made a fatal error during the 2023 gubernatorial elections in the state.

According to him, the decision not to listen to the voice of the people and abide by the principles of the founding fathers on power rotation cost the party dearly.

He said that 2023 was bitter-sweet for the PDP.

“Bitter because the party that I love, the great PDP made a fatal error by not listening to the people, which ended up in the virtual collapse of the party.

“The key to our success has been that the PDP always listened to the people but in 2023, they had the arrogance to believe that they cannot listen to the people.

“The people were saying that there should be rotation and that it was the turn of the South; that’s what the entire state was saying but the party said it could be anywhere.

“The sweet part of it is that we kept faith with the founders of our state who had, from inception, right from the Calabar Ogoja accord, said power must rotate among the senatorial districts.

“And as a state, we must be very proud of ourselves that we kept faith with those founding principles,” he said.

He added that after the elections, PDP went into a “cycle of self-destruction”, all of which, he said, came from Abuja, with support from some elements in the state, resulting “in the party becoming a shadow its former self.”

He, however, sounded optimistic, vowing that PDP would, one day, overcome its challenges.