Reject Proposal On zoning To Save PDP, Party Leaders Tells NEC

ABUJA - The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been urged to reject the zoning arrangement as proposed by the Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led committee.

A group, the PDP National Leaders Forum, in a statement by its convener and a chieftain of the party from Ogun State, Reverend Olusola Salau, on Tuesday, called on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party which will meet on Thursday, to jettison what it described as the self-serving proposal and maintain the status quo.

The statement made available to journalists in Abuja, noted that the composition of the Zoning Committee of the party was allegedly faulty for the reason that it was lopsided and deliberately skewed to satisfy the interest of a section of the party.

“For instance, Benue State has five representatives while Osun has no single representative. Even when that observation was raised at the meeting, a certain Governor from the South South bullied everybody to ignore something as fundamental as that,” Salau said.

The statement also raised the allegation that some members of the committee used the opportunity to serve on the committee to oil their political scheming at the detriment of the party.

“We have it on good authority that one member of the committee who is a Governor in a South-South state was busy offering monetary inducements to sway other members from toeing the logical path. We know who this Governor is and we are aware that he is nursing a presidential ambition. We do not have any objection to his ambition. However, we will not accept a process that will make anyone fetch the presidential ticket of our great party through a manipulative process.”

Also, the group described the procedure by which the zoning committee rendered its report as “obnoxious and not known to the established pattern of how similar previous reports are presented in the party.