Suspend talks on 2015, Tukur tells Jonathan, Sambo

…harps on performance, infrastructure development
BY HENRY UMORU
ABUJA—THE National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur yesterday urged President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo to deliver on energy and infrastructure and put on hold discussions on 2015.
According to Tukur, he was not interested on who emerges for the 2015 general elections, just as he said  the next three years for the nation’s polls was not his immediate concern.
Speaking on Wednesday during a media interactive session to mark his 77th birthday anniversary at his Abuja residence, the PDP National Chairman stressed that what preoccupied his mind now was how to build a strong party that will transform the country to a greater level as well as focus on who will deliver on the party’s manifesto.
He admitted that his interest in 2015 lies on who will deliver on agriculture, energy, health and other sectors that would help to transform the country, reiterating that PDP under his leadership would not guarantee automatic tickets for incumbent political office holders in the 2015 general elections.
Tukur said, “PDP has been in government for 13 years because the party is consistent. We are not talking of 2015, but infrastructure development, energy, health, agriculture among others. We are talking of performance and not 2015. Give us energy. I am not after 2015 now, all I am interested in is selling the person who has done well based on his performance to the people by 2015. When we get to the bridge of 2015, we will cross it.”

Bamanga Tukur

Reconciliation, key to unity in PDP
The PDP National Chairman also told newsmen that if the nation’s problems must be addressed, there was the urgent need for the government to pay serious attention to education, adding that the country’s security challenges could be effectively addressed if the people were better informed through education.
When asked why members of the National Working Committee, NWC were not at the function, Bamanga Tukur explained that he was not fighting his members and that he got to know about the function at about 6pm.
The PDP national chairman who emphasized that his agenda for the party was based on three Rs, three Ds and three Es aimed at transforming the party and by extension Nigeria, however, explained that the three Rs, which are reconciliation, reformation and rebuilding will help to reconcile the warring factions in the party and by extension Nigeria, while the three Ds which stand for defence, dialogue and diplomacy would help to defend one in term of aggression, dialogue in a given situations so that peace would reign in the country and diplomacy whereby volatile situation could be addressed.
Education, panacea to Nigeria’s problems
The three Es, which stand for Environment, Energy and Education, the National Chairman of the party said would also help to develop the country.
While the environment would be sustained, Tukur maintained that improving energy would develop the country, while education would help to transform the country and put Nigeria among the most developed nations.
Tukur who expressed optimism that with effective utilisation of the country‘s natural endowments, national development would be guaranteed, said, “there is nothing that Nigeria does not have, whatever America and Europe have got, we have got too but to achieve development, we have to build a stable platform and take care of our environment.”