PORT HARCOURT – The President of the Senate, David Mark, has called on members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, to put its defeat at the last general elections behind them and gird up their loins to present a viable opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Speaking at a retreat for PDP members-elect of the National Assembly in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Mark said the first test for the PDP will be their ability to stand and speak with one voice in the forthcoming elections of the principal officers of the 8th National Assembly .
He stated: “ we must subsume our individual interest for our group interest. In the election of principal officers of National Assembly, we must vote in one accord. We must know that united we stand, divided we fall.
“ We must take our destinies in our hands.  We must be ready to provide credible, vibrant, determined and focused opposition to the party in power in a manner that would guarantee development and good governance.
“In doing so, we must maintain a strong synergy between our members in the National Assembly and the National Working Committee( NWC) . The PDP is still a brand all Nigerians know. We just need to reinvent the wheels and move forward.”
Senator Mark who expressed worries about the gale of defection from the PDP to the opposition party after the elections, however, urged members to remain steadfast with the ideology of the PDP.
Governor Nyesom Wike; Governors Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa; Governor Ibrahim Dakwambo of Gombe state; Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state; Governor Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom state; Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State concurred that leaders of the party must work together to rebuild the party and get it well-focused for the 2019 general elections.
Wike maintained that the party should play a credible opposition to advance the corporate Interest of the nation.  The Rivers state governor noted that PDP has played a strategic role in propagating and sustaining democracy in Nigeria but will now play the role of the watchdog on the ruling party, APC.
Acting National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus reiterated that the PDP has since 1999 acted in the national interest, saying that the acceptance of defeat by the immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan was a national sacrifice that saved the nation from chaos .