Ahead of the 2019 presidential elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has resolved to pick its presidential candidate from the north.
The acting National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, confirmed this on Wednesday in Abuja while receiving the report of party’s Post-Election Review Committee, headed by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu.
Secondus revealed that members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP has accepted the recommendation of the committee to choose its presidential candidate for the 2019 elections from the north.
It is believed in some quarters that part of the reasons why PDP lost the last presidential election to the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, was the breach of its zoning principle.
The NWC of the PDP, the acting National Chairman said, will develop a road map to move the party forward “so that the party will avoid the mistakes of the past.”
Secondus thus harped on the need for members of the PDP to respect of the party’s constitution.
He tagged the report of the party’s Post-Election Review Committee as “a turning point” in the affairs of party, stressing that PDP is now a well organised political party in Nigeria, which is ready to play the role of opposition politics.
The PDP acting National Chairman concretely assured that the committee’s report would be presented before other organs of the party for adoption and ratification.
His words: “The Caucus will meet, we will send the report to the Board of Trustees, the report will be considered at the NEC meeting. We will send it to the National Convention to ratify it if there is the need”.
Earlier, the Chairman of the PDP Post-Election Review, Senator Ekweremadu, had, while presenting the report, advised the party to “strictly apply the zoning principle at all levels.”
According to him, “since the last President of PDP extraction came from the southern part of Nigeria, it is recommended that PDP’s presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections should come from the northern part of the country in accordance with the popular views expressed in the submissions to the committee. “This will also assuage any ill feelings in the north over any perceived breach of the party’s zoning principle”, he reasoned.
The committee equally noted that the role of party leader has “no basis in the constitution of the PDP,” and thus recommended for its abolition at all levels.
This, the committee believed, will help to strengthen the structure of the party at all levels.
The Ekweremadu-led committee also advised the PDP to do away with the use of delegates to elect its candidates for elections, pointing out that the method has been grossly compromised and abused.
The Committee recommended, instead, that the adoption of direct primary as sole means of electing PDP candidates for any election at all levels.
The system, it argued, is a way of returning the party to the people, as true owners of PDP.
Ekweremadu said: “We have made extensive recommendations, the core of which is to end impunity, uphold justice, entrench internal democracy, enhance party administration, entrench transparency and accountability, and return the party to its true owners – the people – in accordance with our party slogan and funding principles.
“It is recommended that the party should henceforth be self-funding, relying on membership registrations and enforcement of dues and levies in line with the PDP constitution.
“This is with a view to ending the prevailing situation where those who pay the piper (call) the tune”, he said.
The committee was inaugurated on May 5, 2015 in the wake of PDP’s poor performance in the last general elections, with a nine-term of reference.
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