The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that no section of the country will impose its 2019 presidential candidate on it.
Rather, it said the task of picking who would fly the party’s flag would be the joint efforts of all delegates to the party’s convention where the candidate would be elected.
The spokesperson for the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, who spoke with our correspondent on Tuesday in Abuja, said that every member of the party would have a say on who would fly the party’s ticket in 2019.
He said, “We have said it before and we are saying it again; every member of this party will have a say on who will be our presidential candidate in 2019.
“That decision will not be left to any section of the country or any of the organs of the party. We are rebuilding the party and like our National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, said, we are returning the party to the people.
“You know how the leadership of the party was elected in a free, fair and transparent national convention which was televised life. That’s how we will also handle our presidential primary.
“Whoever emerges there would be the candidate of the party. We are looking for a nationally acceptable candidate and not a regional or sectional candidate.”
Our correspondent gathered that there were misgivings in the party following the decision of the northern elders and stakeholders, who met in Abuja on Saturday and demanded that the region be allowed to play a prominent role in picking the party’s presidential candidate from the North.
The leaders had claimed that all major “political operators have agreed that the forthcoming 2019 general elections is the turn of the North to produce the President. “
“What we want is that this time round, let us have the opportunity to come together so that whatever is decided for the North, it is the northern leaders who decide it and then we get support from the (other) regions,” the northern elders added in their communique.
The meeting was convened by a former National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Bello Mohammed; a former Deputy President of the Senate, Ibrahim Mantu; Senator Paul Wanpana and chaired by Alhaji Tanko Yakasai.
In the communique signed by Mantu, the forum said that, it would remain “non-partisan, but political, non-ethnic and non-religious.”
Our correspondent observed that, apart from a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba, who is still a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, majority of the attendees are members of the PDP.
