The Nigerian music star cum politician, Bankole Wellington popularly known as Banky W, has said that his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is responsible for some of the challenges Nigerians are battling.
Banky W who is a House of Representatives candidate for Eti-Osa Federal Constituency in Lagos, stated this on Wednesday during an interview on Arise TV.
He said that he joined politics to contribute in proffering solutions to the problems of the country.
He said, “In 2018, I started feeling like the problems in Nigeria is from top to bottom, while the solution is from the bottom up. So we have to start from the National Assembly, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the state houses of assembly. So when I talked to young people then, they didn’t even know who were contesting for the seats.
“And then I started thinking, I felt this burden that said, ‘If you, with with your education and your success and your background and your following and your audience and your voice, and you can’t stick your neck out and say I can be a part of this system and I can bring a solution to the table, then who am I waiting for?’ Politics will always be dirty and dangerous until good people start to be part of the system.”
Wellington also said that he chose PDP because he considered it as the party that aligned with his principles, after a failed experiment with an unpopular party that was subsequently de-registered by INEC.
“And concerning the choice of PDP: politics is local, and you need structure to win elections. We ran in 2019 on a party called MDP. But MDP was literally myself and my friend (called) BK. He was running in Ondo State and I was running in Lagos. We were just a bunch of young people.
“After that election, INEC de-registered most of the political parties which I was fully in support of because they were 96. It didn’t make sense. And if you look at any functioning democracy in the world, like if you want to get into any office in America, you have to be a Democrat or a Republican. So also in the UK, it’s between Labour and Conservative.
“So, looking at both parties, I said where do I think that I can go into without losing my soul, where I will be able to stand on what I stand for, fight for what I want to fight for. And the PDP ticked those boxes for me. It’s truly a democratic party,” he said.
Banky W further stated that he is aware of the fact that the PDP had caused Nigerians some pains in the past and he could not defend it, adding that he is willing to be one of those who can reform the party.
“But the truth of the matter is, we have to acknowledge the pains that a lot of young people feel, we have to acknowledge the frustration Nigerians feel, some of which were caused by people in the PDP, absolutely.
“But the way I look at it is that a system is only as good as the people that are involved in it. A system is just a collection of people that are fighting for it, pushing for any kind of result. So, the longer we shun the process, the longer that the system will be bad.
“The truth of the matter is that I’m not here to defend anything everybody in the PDP has ever done. That’s not my job. I’m here to reform it,” he said.
