Former Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu has opened up on dirty underground dealings that made the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, held sway as the ruling party for sixteen years.
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Mantu blew the lid on PDP’s atrocities relating to election in an interview with Channel TV monitored by our correspondent where he also spoke of his own ignoble role.
“I don’t have to go and change election (results) but when you provide money, you give money to INEC boys that if they see any chance they should favour you, you provide money to the security (personnel),” he said on Channels Television’ Hard Copy.
“I tell you it’s not necessarily when I am contesting election but when my party sponsors a candidate, I will like that candidate to win election.”
He agreed ‘wholeheartedly’ with PDP national chairman,Prince Uche Secundus,on the recent public apology he tendered on the party’s mistakes when it was in power between 1999 and 2015.
He said:”We have failed the people through the ways and politics. It is time for us to ensure that we do not allow the wrong people to lead the people and the nation.
“ As politicians, we have committed sins against the people, by encouraging the things that we should not have encouraged.
“God has totally blessed our country Nigeria with abundant human and natural resources but we have failed to utilize these to improve the quality of lives of the people.”
Asked why he thought Secundus’ apology was in order, Mantu said: “there is the need for Nigerian politicians to apologize for all the sins we have committed against the people.
“That is because we have shortchanged the people.”
He recalled, how in the PDP, names of candidates who won elections were deleted and replaced with other names.
“Winners names were crossed out and replaced with names of those who did not win. It is bad because we imposed those who did not win on the people,” he said.
“It is true that we (PDP) ruled with impunity.”
He asked other PDP members to also become “born again, remorse and repentant.
“We must meet the expectations of the people. It is not about changing from one party to another. It is about changing our heart. It is about changing our attitudes. Let us sit down and reflect on the bad leadership that we have given to Nigerians these past years and change. Nigeria is supposed to lead Africa but we have failed.”
Mantu had in 2017 in an interview, claimed he had turned a new leaf, and became a born-again politician.
