Politics
THE Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has called an emergency meeting of its National Executive Committee over demands by some members of its coalition group for the 2019 general elections, The PUNCH learnt on Sunday evening.
The NEC meeting will follow the meeting of its Board of Trustees, both of which will hold in Abuja on Monday (today).
But while the BoT will meet in the morning, the NEC will hold in the evening.
The national caucus had earlier met in Abuja on Sunday night.
Our correspondent gathered that some issues were raised by some political parties and associations with whom the PDP signed an agreement recently on how to wrest power from the All Progressives Congress in 2019.
Some of the issues, our correspondent learnt, included the possibility of a change of name for the PDP and positions where other political parties apart from the PDP could field candidates in the elections.
A member of the BoT of the PDP, who spoke on condition of anonymity with our correspondent on Sunday night, said that the meeting would also discuss how to receive those expected to defect to the party within the week.
He said, “The NEC meeting and others before it are important because of the issues raised by the coalition groups.
“For example, some are still insisting that we should change our name and logo, while others want to know how they will benefit in terms of fielding of candidates for the elections.
“We were manipulated in the Ekiti State governorship election because the coalition did not work. Now, the Osun State governorship election is approaching. We need to finalise that before all the political parties send the names of their candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“We need to discuss which party will step down for the other and so on. We cannot go to that battle as a scattered group. If we do, we could be whipped again.”
The spokesperson for the party, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, confirmed the meeting and its agenda.
He, however, said that the meeting would “take action on all pending issues”, adding that the party had not said it was changing its name.
Meanwhile, the party has summoned all its 11 governorship aspirants in Osun State to a meeting in Abuja.
The meeting with the aspirants will be presided over by the National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus and will be attended by all the members of its National Working Committee.
It was gathered that some of the aspirants had complained about the conduct of the primary which was won by Senator Nurudeen Adeleke.
Apart from him, others expected at the meeting are Sen. Akanbi Abdulrasheed, Dr Oyewumi Olalere, Mr Nathaniel Oke (SAN), Sen. Ogunwale Felix and Alhaji Fatai Akinbade.
Others are Dr Ezekiel Adeniji, Dr Akin Ogunbiyi, Dr Ayoade Adewepo, Rafiu Bello and Prof. Adeolu Durotoye.
It was gathered that Ogunbiyi, who came a close second to Adeleke, had petitioned the Governorship Appeal Committee that he was not fairly treated during the election.
Ologbondiyan, who confirmed the holding of the meeting, said that the committee would not take sides in anything that “is brought before it.” – Punch
– Jul. 23, 2018 @ 7:39 GMT
Tags: 2019: PDP calls emergency NEC meeting over coalition … summons 11 Osun gov aspirants
