The Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, has begged members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, not to leave the party.

The PDP has been bedevilled by a leadership crisis that has seen two factions – the Ahmed Makarfi and the Ali Sheriff factions – laying claim to leadership since the party lost the 2015 presidential election to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

Mr. Dickson, who is the Chairman, PDP National Reconciliation Committee, has been making efforts to restore peace in the party. But the committee seems to have achieved little or nothing in that regard so far.

Many PDP leaders and members have been decamping to the APC, while the leadership tussle drags on in the court.

Mr. Dickson’s plea is coming at a time PDP members are anxiously awaiting the Supreme Court judgment on the party leadership crisis. It is also coming at a time a new political association, Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance, APDA, has just been launched in Abuja.

There are speculations that APDA was being floated by some prominent members of the Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the PDP who planned to quit the party in the event that it loses its appeal against the Ali Sheriff faction at the Supreme Court.

The PDP will bounce back soon, Mr. Dickson said in a statement issued on Tuesday by his Special Adviser on Media Relations, Francis Agbo.

The governor advised party leaders and members not to lose hope, but to remain in the party.

He said he was concerned with the way the PDP members were decamping to other parties and the reports that some of the party leaders were floating alternative political platforms.

Mr. Dickson said what the PDP needed at this juncture was a genuine reconciliation founded on compromises and forgiveness, adding that if the party leaders had accepted the reconciliation template put together by his committee the crisis would have been over by now and a unity national convention would have been held this month to elect a new leadership for the party.

The governor said political leaders in Nigeria exert too much pressure on the judiciary by failing to do the right thing and by also failing to build consensus.

The PDP crisis, the governor said, has weakened the party across the entire country, especially in states like Edo, Ondo, Benue, Lagos, and others where the governorship and local government elections have been held or are about to hold.

The governor said his committee would not relent on reconciliation and confidence-building in the party. He promised to address PDP members after the Supreme Court judgment