Ahead of the National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the opposition party is set to zone the party National Chairman to the South and the presidential candidate for the 2023 elections to the North.
Though the zoning formula for the presidency and the National Working Committee (NWC) offices will be decided on September 9, but the aspirants believed to be contesting for the party’s National Chairman are all from the South.
Newsflash Nigeria understands that former President Goodluck Jonathan was the party’s candidate in the 2015 presidential election, while ex-vice-president Atiku Abubakar as its candidate in the 2019 election.
Speaking with Daily Trust at the weekend, a PDP official said that the National Executive Committee (NEC) will finally decide the zoning formula for the presidency and the National Working Committee (NWC) offices at a meeting slated for September 9.
According to the official, the party is also planning to cede the national chairmanship position of the party to the Southern part of the country.
He stated the party made the decision during its 92nd National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at its headquarters in Abuja at the weekend.
Nigeria News: I am the traditional head of the Yoruba nation ― Alaafin of Oyo
The official, however, revealed that the party will hold its elective national convention on October 30 and 31 which would throw up a new crop of NWC.
He stated that the date is sacrosanct and nothing can change the date and venue of the convention, adding that the new NWC members would ratify the zoning of 2023 political offices.
Some of the aspirants believed to be contesting for the party’s presidential ticket are; former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar; former Senate President, Bukola Saraki; Sokoto State Governor, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State.
Other likely aspirants are former Governors of Jigawa and Kano States, Sule Lamido and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; among others.
Newsflash Nigeria gathered that the party’s top-shots gunning for the presidency are working hard to identify persons they will support to clinch the party’s NWC positions.
For the chairmanship, a former military Governor of Ondo State, Chief Olabode George; the embattled National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus; former PDP candidate for Ondo State governorship election, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede; Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Suleiman Nazif; former Governor of Osun State, Ọlagunsoye Oyinlọla; former Kaduna State governor and one-time interim chairman of the party, Senator Ahmed Makarfi; Mr Jimi Agbaje, governorship candidate in Lagos; former governor of Gombe State, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo and former South-West National Vice Chairman, Dr Eddy Olafeso, are eyeing the seat.
Support for the chairmanship candidates is said to be informed by zoning configurations in the party with contenders from the North supporting southern aspirants for the party leadership while those with ambition in the South are pushing for the chairmanship to be zoned to the North.
However, reliably gathered that the wind is presently in favour of the emergence of the chairman of the party from the South-West zone, while the presidency is zoned to the North.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the ongoing horse-trading told our reporters that those advocating for ceding the presidential ticket to the North may seem to have an upper hand, as the argument for the need to woo the massive votes from the North gain currency among the ranks of the party.
Two top chieftains of the party said that a widely popular proposal is for a northerner to be paired with someone from the South-East or South-South.
“Already a lot of them are jostling for the vice-presidential slot at our own end,” a source close to Atiku told one of our reporters, without naming those angling for the position.
Informed sources said former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who tore his PDP membership card in 2015, in a dramatic style to announce his exit from the party, is pushing for Oyinlola to emerge as the next party chairman.
Though Obasanjo’s has not announced his rejoining the PDP, party leaders still defer to him, with many of them, including embattled Secondus, visiting him at different times.
“Though many party leaders have no problem with Oyinlola, some of them are expressing fears that the man may at the end be answerable to the former president. But personally, I believe that a 70-year-old man is beyond manipulation. We should just hope that he would not mistake himself as executive chairman and go about disregarding critical stakeholders,” a former minister and chieftain of the party told one of our reporters.
Atiku, on his part, is said to be supporting the emergence of Jegede, one of his lawyers, for the position. Jegede, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), only recently lost his Ondo governorship bid at the Supreme Court after he had earlier lost at the polls.
A source close to Governor Tambuwal said the Sokoto governor is working for the emergence of a Southerner as the party chairman to pave way for his aspiration.
“If, as some chieftains are proposing, the chairman comes from the North-West, it means Oga’s ambition will be in jeopardy, and you know he would not let that happen after he has suffered for a long time,” the source said.
The politics of where the chairman of the party comes from is said to be responsible for the crack in the otherwise cordial relationship between Tambuwal and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. The intrigues led to recent support expressed by Tambuwal for Secondus, in spite of Wike’s opposition to his fellow Rivers man
The PDP Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Prince Diran Odeyemi, said that if a new chairman emerged at the October convention and Secondus insists on vacating office in December, the party will use an internal mechanism to resolve the issues.
“We can have the convention in October and possibly whoever emerges as chairman will hold down if Secondus still insists on finishing his tenure in December.
“In PDP, we have an internal mechanism of resolving our crisis. There is what we call exigencies in the political arrangement that may defile the party’s constitution, but it is done for peace to reign.
“If this has not happened in the PDP before, there is always a first time,” he said.
A member of the Board of Trustees (BoT), Adamu Maina Waziri, said that “As far as the PDP is concerned, the presidency should return to the North because the successor to President Jonathan in 2011 should have been a Northern candidate, not Jonathan.
“That is the understanding in the PDP and that is what I subscribe to. We cannot enforce a system on APC neither can the APC enforce a system on PDP.”
A foundation member of the PDP, Alhaji Aminu Yakudima told Daily Trust in a telephone interview that “Looking at the political terrain, we are thinking that the best way to resolve this permutation is to allow the presidency to go to the North and let the chairmanship go to the South.
“When you look at the political cloud in the country and the permutations that can aggregate, that is the way to go. We look at this as the best option for the PDP as a political party if PDP wants to bounce back.
“It is possible also that the PDP calculation may have an opposite of the permutations of the APC. APC presidential candidate may come from the South. So if PDP plays this card, it may bounce back.
“What it means is that if the APC fields a presidential candidate from the South and the PDP fields from the North, PDP may bounce back.”
Advancing the reasons for his argument, the PDP stalwart said, “We have seen the performance of the current administration that is being run by a northerner.
“Northerners are yearning to have another chance not only to redeem their image but to send a signal and make people believe that is not the best hand they have.
“It is wise for the North to retain the presidency if you look at the number of years the South has spent in the presidency from 1999 to date. It is a rotational presidency but for fairness, the North should be given another chance.
“We should look at our brotherhood and then try to see that we are not carried away by unnecessary agitations or ethnic jingoism based on North/South dichotomy.”
On arguments that Secondus does not want to obey the NEC decision, he said, “PDP is a big party and it has a convention since its formation that nobody owns the party. It was formed by the people and owned by the people. Therefore, the party is for the people and no one will be allowed to hijack the party.
“Nobody will say he is above the party or the rule of law. What has been done was done by an organ of the party that has the constitutional power to do what it did. Secondus as an individual cannot go against it.”
Similarly, a former stalwart of the PDP, Chief Jackson Lekan Ojo, said, “Obasanjo did eight years from the South, then power shifted to the North but Yar’adua didn’t complete his tenure. Jonathan completed that tenure and enjoyed a fresh tenure of four years.
“That is to say eight years of Obasanjo plus six years of Jonathan that is fourteen years. Two years of Yar’adua and eight years of Buhari will be ten years. So the South is still ahead of the North by four years. So PDP will zone presidential ticket to the North,” he said.
Contacted for comments, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said, “The zoning the party is going to do now is not about the presidential ticket. It is the zoning of party offices. The zoning committee of the national convention is to zone party offices.”
On whether the South would retain the chairmanship, Ologbondiyan said, “I don’t know. We have not even composed the committee members yet.”
Recall that the PDP had announced that its forthcoming National Convention will hold in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
This was part of the decisions reached at the party’s 92nd National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held in Abuja on Saturday, 28th August, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan confirmed.
According to Ologbondiyan on Saturday, the NEC will still meet on September 9th to ratify appointments into the various committees for the convention.
