From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council on Friday, advised elder statesman and former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, to continue to maintain his integrity and avoid making statements capable of derailing the quest for national unity.
The campaign council was reacting to the open letter by Clark to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, where he accused the governor, among other allegations, of betraying his southern colleagues by accepting to be the running mate to a northern presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP. But addressing journalists in Asaba, Spokesman of the campaign council and Commissioner for Information in Delta State, Charles Aniagwu said such comments from an elder statesman would only stoke up the embers of discord between the north and the south. He said the PDP with the state government hold Chief Clark in high esteem, and urged him not to mortgage the unity of Nigeria at the expense of his preferences.
“The PDP will continue to accord enormous respect to persons in the category of Chief Edwin Clark, but in the midst of that, we will also advise that, in line with the need to promote unity and the peace of this country, elders must make comments that are in line with our desire to remain as one country.
“It might be pardonable for the young ones to talk about the north and south dichotomy, but Edwin Clark has been around even before the civil war, and he knows the geographic composition of Nigeria with brothers and sisters crisscrossing the north and the south,” Aniagwu said.
