PDP BoT cautions against imposition of party’s National Chairman

7 years ago

PDP BoT cautions against imposition of party’s National Chairman

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) on Friday cautioned the party against imposing anybody as national chairman of the party.
Chairman of the BoT, Walid Jibril, in a speech during the inauguration of the convention pla?nning committee on Friday in Abuja, stated that the party had gone beyond the period of impunity and imposition of candidates.

According to Jibril, some persons might have prepared their minds to force themselves into office as PDP national chairman.

He also assured that the peace efforts to resolve the crisis in the party would be concluded? before the August 17 national convention.

He said, “This party is not for sale. This party must be a party of very conscious people. We are telling every delegate to reject anybody that come with money. We are honest and upright persons. This party will not want somebody that will come and buy his way into office. The BoT will no longer accept any leadership to be forced on the party.”

On the reconciliatory process in the party, he said: “We must remind ourselves that the party is supreme. Therefore I implore all of us to abide by this principle. Today this party is characterized by court cases. I can count about 15 court cases which is alien to the PDP. We have a constitution that set out procedure for settling grievances and for us to solve our problems internally.

“But unfortunately, rather than judging our selves, our problems are going out and we are being judged by someone else outside of our constitution.”

He disclosed that “The BoT has sat down to look at the issues. While we accept in principle the agreement reached for the national convention, we are looking at another theory of reconciliation.

“And BoT has setup a committee under the chairmanship of Prof Jerry Gana, to look into this matter again. And to see what can be done to unite this party again. And before the convention we may likely reach full reconciliation to bring all pants together.”

According to the BoT boss, “we cannot sit down as fathers and conscience of the party and allow things go astray.?There are various committees set up to settle our problem. One of the major committees is the reconciliation committee headed by the governor of Bayelsa.”

In his own remarks, chairman of the caretaker committee, Ahmed Makarfi, defended the decision to reserve the Chairmanship slot for the Southwest zone but explained that it was not intended to short change anybody.

“I recall when we last met here to inaugurate the zoning committee and I mentioned on behalf of the caretaker committee that the convention would be an all-inclusive one and that offices to be contested for would be open to all and sundry, that doesn’t mean people cannot come together to zone offices.

“If zoning does not favour you and you still think that you have the best chance of winning, the political landscape is there. It’s up to you to campaign across the country to get enough delegates to support you. Zoning doesn’t mean you have been excluded, it is meeting of the minds. And it is for every aspirant to assess himself or herself whether he or she has the capacity to garner more support than.
than the other.

“So, I don’t want people to have the impression that they have been excluded from the process. After all, democracy is about minority will have their say, majority will have their way. But in PDP, we have the culture of coming together to be one family so that both minority and majority work together for the good of the PDP.”

One of the aspirants, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, who had disagreed with the zoning was the first to pick his form at the PDP national secretariat, stressing that zoning was not legally binding on any aspirant.

DAILY POST gathered that during the meeting of the Southern PDP stakeholders in Port Harcourt on Thursday night, a vote was taken to decide on whether it should go to the South west or not.

89 of the 92 stakeholders present voted in favour of South West ?while three voted against.

On Friday a former deputy national chairman of the PDP, Chief Bode George, picked his form to contest ?the Chairmanship position.

In an interview shortly after he collected his form, George said his main agenda was to stabilise the party.