PDP’s inability to manage successes responsible for APC’s victory – Lamido

Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State has blamed the Peoples Democratic Par­ty’s inability to properly manage its successes as being responsible for the party’s failure last Sat­urday at the presidential polls.

Lamido fielding ques­tions from State House cor­respondents after meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan Thursday evening, however expressed con­fidence that the party will bounce back at the guber­natorial and state Houses of Assembly elections.

He said in the last 16 years of being in charge of the country, the party made what he described as “very very costly mistakes.”

Lamido whose state is one of the states where Jonathan lost the March 28 presidential election, post­ing 885,988 for the APC and 142,904 for the PDP, did not however men­tion the mistakes that cost the party the presidency.

He said, “I am sure if you know the party’s (PDP’s) history, what it went through in the last 16 years, it has the capacity to bounce back. But more importantly, we lost the elections with pains because PDP made some mistakes.

“I have been saying so, the party made very very costly mistakes and we have not been able to properly manage our successes. But to me I don’t think quitting PDP is the answer.”

Reacting to the result of the election that produced Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the All Progres­sives Congress (APC) as the President-elect, the gover­nor said whoever becomes the President is a Nigerian President and not a Presi­dent for a particular region.

On the belief that PDP governors who lost their states to opposition did not work hard enough, Lamido said this was not the time to play blame game.

“We won’t go into blame game. In what way will this blame change the attitude of the crowd? Leadership is a very huge burden and is normal for followership to stick in other to look at things from their own per­spective,” he said.

Lamido said Nigerians had spoken in very loud and unmistaken ways and so their choice and right should be respected.

He commended Buhari for his hard-earned victory, while adding that the vic­tory belongs to the nation.

“We praise Buhari for being able to take the ticket from the PDP even though I am not happy, but it’s Nigeria that won, not Buhari.

None of them lost but Nigeria won and enough of the anxiety, enough of the worry and the fear in Africa,” he added.

While admitting that there is a tendency of the bandwagon effect of the presidential and National Assembly elections rub­bing off on the April 11 governorship election, he advised that the party re­turns to the drawing board and work harder to change the sliding tide of the party.