PDP explains stand on micro-zoning, Anambra, Edo, Ondo elections

Following the controversy on micro zoning and allegation of doublespeak against the National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by some chairmanship aspirants, the party has  reiterated that it only recognised zoning between North and South.

This according to the party tallies with the position of the national convention and National Executive Committee (NEC).

National Publicity Secretary, Prince Dayo Adeyeye in a press briefing on Wednesday said the party will recognise that both North and South may politically micro zone positions to geo-political zones and the geo-political zones to states.

He noted that “the North micro-zoned and other zones are micro-zoning without recourse to PDP Headquarters.”

He however noted that the South of recent had made effort to micro zone, and has not been able to reach agreement on Chairmanship and Deputy Chairmanship.

He stated that “if this is not sorted out before the Convention it means the matter can only be settled at the Convention.”

“We also understand that the South of recent is doing so but up to now have not been able to reach agreement on Chairmanship and Deputy Chairman. If this is not sorted out before the Convention it means the matter can only be settled at the Convention.

“The North micro-zoned and other zones are micro-zoning without recourse to PDP Headquarters.

Adeyeye stated that “As democrats and also to avoid imposition against the wish of the majority, we have opened the race to all aspirants who disagree with the micro-zoning.

“Therefore sale of forms has been and will continue to be open to all within the context of North/South that NEC took a decision on.

Adeyeye also clarified that it was not aware that the chairman of the NCC, Senator Ahmed Makarfi nursed any presidential ambition.
“As for the issue of whether sen Makarfi has presidential ambition or not, we are not aware of that.

“The national caretaker committee is not aware of that and we have not opened the flood gate for people to begin to aspire for position of the president. INEC has not even released timetable. “I don’t know if they have released any timetable for the presidential election.

“We in the PDP are concerned now in putting in place a new leadership for the party which we hope will come up or emerge latest by December 9 or 10. That is our preoccupation at the national caretaker committee.

On the allegations of lopsided membership of congress committees and compromise by Senator Ahmed Makarfi levelled by two chairmanship aspirants, Prof Tunde Adeniran and Chief Bode George complaining of the lopsided membership of congress committees, Adeyeye said: “we never took nominations from any candidate but from the states and other organs of the Party.

He said “it’s the state chapters that actually conduct congresses. The Committees only compile the results and attend to appeals after which they file their reports to the party headquarters.

“When all reports are filed by the Committees, we shall summon the States Chairmen to come with their copies and reconfirm the results at a date to be fixed and all bonafide interest groups will be welcomed to witness it. This is to reassure everybody that validly elected delegates list is not tampered with.

“Commenting specifically on the issues raised by Chief Bode George through his Director-General and Prof. Tunde Adeniran, we wish to state that Chief Bode George assertions were wild and not specific.

“However, Prof. Adeniran’s letter specifically mentioned 5 names out of about 216 names. While assuring him that we shall pay special attention to the places they were posted to, but we did not and could not interview the members to know their linings before calling on them to serve.

“Its most likely that some of the remaining 211 members are aligned to some other persons seeking elective offices including himself and Chief Bode George.

“It pains us that on the one hand Chief Bode George who is fully aware of the pains we are still going through in Lagos in order to fairly and equitably carry everybody on board to the extent that we are been accused by others as siding with him is the same person accusing us of impunity.

“On the preparations for the convention, we have asked Chairmanship aspirants to make input so that they have their eyes and ears in each Committee. It was only Chief Bode George that did not attend the meeting we had with the aspirants.”

On Anambra elections and continuing castigations of the NCC by the Senator representing Ogun East, Sen. Buruji Kashamu, Adeyeye said: “We do agree that the Anambra issue is a self inflicted injury which has been with the state since after the 2003 general elections.

“Irrespective of the perfections or imperfections of our party primaries and the outcome, PDP Anambrarians had developed conflicting mindsets. We did our best to bring all under one Caretaker Committee hoping that things will work out well.

“Here, we need to remind PDP members and Nigerians that it was Sen. Kashamu and those he was bankrolling that conducted parallel congresses in Edo and Ondo States.

“They did not stop there but took us up to Supreme Court and in the end openly endorsed and campaigned for our opponents. Their actions made us to loose the elections.

“The public should however recall we neither conducted parallel congress in the Osun Senatorial bye-election nor did we campaign for our opponents.

“We rather directed everybody to work for the Party nominee and he won. You can clearly see who have been undermining the Party’s chances at elections.”

Adeyeye explained the reasons why the party lost the Anambra governorship election: “Anambra crisis is more deep-rooted than you are seeing it. These people are very much divided and it has been a recurring decimal since 2003. I want to tell you that in this last Anambra election, majority of votes for APGA came from PDP.

“We are aware and it is because of these divisions. They openly said it before the elections and they went ahead and did it. So it is an unfortunate situation.

“But I believe it is a thing that the next leadership of the party that will take over from us will have full time to look at at the Anambra matter and solve the problem once and for all,”

According to Adeyeye, the Peace accord.
signed by the chairmanship aspirants, he stated that the party has no way to enforce it. “If they flaunted it there is nothing we can do. It is a matter that we will continue to revisit from time to time,” Adeyeye said.

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