*Party upturned zoning arrangements to favour Atiku, Afegbua claims
Chuks Okocha in Abuja
Anyim Pius Anyim, former Senate President and frontline presidential aspirant of the PDP, tells party stakeholders he has accepted the National Executive Committee (NEC) decision that threw open the party’s presidential ticket.
On Thursday, he told the forum of former National Working Committee (NWC) members that visited him he accepted the decision of the NEC because the party would always be supreme.
The PDP NEC had on Wednesday, after several intrigues, threw open the contest for the party’s presidential ticket to all the six geopolitical zones of the country.
The NEC had noted that the zoning and rotational presidency provision in the PDP “is good and served the party well in the past.”
“It should be affirmed and it is hereby affirmed. We must always try to enshrine justice justly and fairly. That it is in the interest of justice and fair play that the party should take decision on zoning timeously so as to prevent complications to the process as it is happening now,” the party’s NEC said in a communique. “In the light of the above, the presidential election should now be left open. However, the party should work towards a consensus candidate where possible.”
Anyim explained that the party also asked the aspirants to commence talks on consensus.
“I have already commenced talks with my fellow presidential aspirants on consensus since the party has recommended it. For now, zoning is to take the back seat for the general interest of the nation. Nigerians are waiting for the PDP, and we cannot afford to disappoint the nation,” stressed Anyim. “Nigerians won’t expect us to quarrel over the zoning issue as the ruling party is expecting. We will unite and move the country forward. Generations to come will not forgive the PDP if we fail.”
Former NWC members in the delegation included former national chairman Kawu Baraje, former women leader Kema Chikwe, ex-national publicity secretary Olisa Metu, ex-women leader Inna Ciroma and former national organising secretary Mohammed Mustapha, etc.
Speaking in a similar vein, another presidential aspirant, Sam Ohuabunwa, said, “We talk about zoning because we do not yet have a country. If we have a country, no one will be talking about zoning. We should be talking about building our nation that is why I’m presenting myself.”
Kassim Afegbua, however, dismissed the party’s decision as a travesty of justice, accusing its National Chairman, Iyiochia Ayu, of pandering to the whims of one of the presidential aspirants, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
“The outcome of the meeting of the National Executive Committee on zoning did not come as a surprise because I knew from day one that Dr. Iyorchia Ayu-led executives were working from answer to question because of pecuniary interest,” claimed Afegbua.
He added, “Dr. Ayu’s first major assignment of following the dictates of the party constitution has ended up in abysmal failure. How do you jettison your constitutional provisions because you want to crookedly plot the ticket of the party for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar? It is obvious that Dr. Ayu is pretentiously working for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and, in the process, trying to upturn the zoning arrangement.”
