The leading opposition People’s Democratic Party has zoned the position of its national chairman to the North.
This comes a few days after Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the pan-Igbo sociocultural organization, declared that PDP risked going into extinction if it zoned its presidency to the north in the 2023 elections.
However, PDP is yet to declare its position on the presidency, vice presidency, or other executive and legislative positions.
It was disclosed that these key political offices were kept outside the terms of reference of the party’s National Convention Zoning Committee.
Generally, PDP’s zoning committee distributes the party’s key positions between North, South
The committee created by the party to handle the distribution of party and political offices did recommend the swapping of party leadership positions between the North and the South.
For this purpose the committee has recommended that all the positions that are currently occupied by northern party members will be given to southerners, while those now occupied by southerners will automatically go to northers.
The current chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, is a southerner.
The chairman of the committee and governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, confirmed this to journalists in Abuja on Thursday.
Ugwuanyi said that “At the end of the deliberations of the PDP National Zoning Committee, it was resolved as follows:
“The National Zoning Committee of the PDP was given the mandate to zone national offices to be contested by all PDP members at the PDP National Convention scheduled for October 30/31 2021 by the National Executive Committee.
“That the mandate of the committee does not include zoning of the offices of the president, vice president, and other executive and legislative offices of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“And the decision of the committee to zone the party offices does not in any way affect the executive and legislative offices in Nigeria.
“That zoning of offices in PDP has traditionally been between the North and South of Nigeria.
“The decision of the PDP Zoning Committee is in line with the constitution of the party on zoning and rotation of party and national offices in the interest of justice, equity, and fairness. “
“Consequently, the current offices being held by officers in the southern zones of the country, namely, South West, South East, and South South zones, should swap places with the offices currently in the northern zones of Nigeria, namely, North West, North East, and North Central zones.
“We want to thank the party, especially the National Executive Committee that set up this committee on September 9, 2021, for finding us worthy to serve the party in the capacity as zoning committee members.
“We shall pass on our recommendations to the National Executive Committee of the party through the National Working Committee.”
