Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 37-man zoning committee and Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has debunked the report that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has jettisoned its zoning arrangement and thrown open the contest for its presidential ticket for the 2023 poll to all geopolitical zones.
Ortom said the committee only submitted its recommendations to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which has the final decision on whether the presidential ticket should be zoned to the south or north or thrown open to aspirants from all geopolitical zones of the country.
He stated this on a Channels Television programme, yesterday.
“I want to repeat that the committee’s work at our own level has been concluded; it is now left for the NEC to decide on what they think is the best for the party and Nigerians. We have just made a recommendation to the NEC, but it will now take a final decision. I think that NEC will soon invite us to a meeting because in any case most members of the committee are also members of NEC. So, at NEC, there will be robust discussions on what will help Nigerians and what will help the party to win in 2023,” Ortom said.
On whether the party had not taken the wrong step by contemplating whether to jettison zoning or abide by it as has been the tradition of the party, Ortom said: “We have not shot ourselves in the foot and we will not do that. We listen to the people; we are grassroots-oriented and we want to make sure that whatever we do reflects the interests of our people in the PDP and the interests of Nigerians.”
Although he agreed that there could be some dissenting voices if zoning is finally jettisoned based on where such persons come from and their collective interests within their constituency, Ortom said at the end of the day, they would still come together and look at the larger picture of winning the 2023 presidential election.
