BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Politics
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The race for the chairmanship of the Peoples Democratic Party is on with political gladiators from the South-South and the South West regions angling to occupy the post that has been zoned to the South by the party
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Aug 15, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE race for the next national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is gathering momentum. With the position zoned to the South, political gladiators from the South West and South South are already scheming to clinch the plum job when the election holds at the forthcoming national convention of the party slated to August 17. That is if the convention still holds given that the Modu Sheriff-led faction of the PDP has written the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to ignore the date for the convention which was fixed by the Ahmed Makarfi, chairman of the caretaker committee of another faction of the party.
As at today, five aspirants have indicated their interest to vie for the post. The front runners are Raymond Dokpesi, chairman emeritus of Daar Communications Plc, from the South-South and Olabode George, former deputy national chairman of the party from the South-West. The rest are from the South west. They are Tunde Adeniran, former minister of education; Taoheed Adedoja, former minister of sports and youth development, and Jimi Agbaje, former PDP governorship candidate in Lagos State. No one in the south east and the North, which has held the position previously has shown interest in the job now.
Dokpesi, who appears to be the sole candidate of the South-South and George are already going across the states in Nigeria campaigning for the support of delegates to the convention. Dokpesi appears to have an upper hand as he has received endorsements from some states chapters of the party and endorsement from other aspirants who have stepped down for him.
For instance, Gbenga Daniel, former Ogun State governor, who was aspiring for the job, has relinquished his desire to support Dokpesi. The former governor, who hosted Dokpesi and his team at Sagamu, said he has confidence in the ability of the media mogul to rebuild the party and make it the darling of Nigerians. He said he has been under pressure from stakeholders to contest but that he would abandon his ambition to support Dokpesi. “I have known the high chief for more than four decades and it beholds on me that I should support him whenever he is seeking any position,” he said.
Dokpesi’s resolve to restore peace in PDP and return the party to power at the federal level in 2019 has earned him supports from Ogun, Kogi, Nasarawa and Benue States as at the last count. The PDP delegates from Ogun State during Dokpesi’s meeting with Daniel prayed for him and pledged their support during the convention.
Similarly, Francis Orogu, chairman of PDP Nasarawa State, said Dokpesi had the best credentials to lead the party. Earlier, during his visit to delegates in Kogi, Margaret Orebiyi, women leader of PDP Kogi State, corroborated the party chairman’s position, saying that Sam Uhuotu, the All Progressives Congress, APC, was already jittery over the credentials of Dokpesi.
So far, Dokpesi has visited more than 20 states of the federation soliciting for support during the national convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He has assured his supporters and delegates that when elected into office, he would end the reign of imposition of candidates in the party. He said: “PDP was formed to be an umbrella to protect all of us from rain and sun but after our victory in 1999, our leaders abandoned the principles of our founding fathers, which made some people to leave and led us to where we are today. We must return to the vision of our founding fathers because the PDP of today is not the same as the party that was formed in 1998”.
However, Dokpesi has an albatross on his neck which may work against him. There is the corruption charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. How this will affect his chances is yet to be seen but he appears unaffected by it. “I don’t want to comment on it but I will not join APC or be a stooge because of it. I respect Buhari as the president of Nigeria but what he is doing now is not different from what he did as a military head of state. He locked up Nigerians for 200 years, some 150 years. As the Chief of Staff of Gongola State, I was locked up and my charge was that I held political office,” he said.
This notwithstanding, his main rival George, who declared his interest to contest for the chairmanship position on Monday, August 1, promised to refocus the party if he is elected as national chairman. He also insisted that the PDP was no longer what it used to be. He, however, attributed this to infighting and indiscipline within, adding that the party needed to be rescued.
“Today, our effectiveness as an opposition party is being made effectual. Our great party is no longer recognisable. Our party needs rescue. Our party needs redemption,” he said in one of his campaigns across the country. While pledging to be a bridge builder if elected as the party’s national chairman, the PDP leader promised to collaborate with other leaders of the party to heal broken relationships, Insisting that he remained the best man for the job, George said the party could not afford any form of experimentation.
One of George’s supporters, Ishola Filani, former national vice chairman of the party in the south-west, called on members of the party in the zone to rally round one candidate from the zone in its bid to produce the national chairman. “We should plead with our two governors to reduce the number of candidates from the zone to one and that one should be Bode George. The south-west will be doing itself a disservice if it fields more than one candidate. It will be unfair for other zones to seek to contest the position of national chairman,” he said.
Filani’s position is based on the fact that the South West has never produced the national chairman of the party since its inception. However, there are arguments that the South-West should allow the south-south to produce the chairman of the party. Those in this school of thoughts argued that the region has more states being ruled by the PDP than any other region in the southern part of the country. This implies that the region will be the financial backbone of the party.
Some leaders of the party in the south-east also want South-South to produce the chairman to enable the region produce the party’s vice-presidential ticket. They believed that the south-west had once produced the president of the country on the party’s platform and that the latest arrangement in the party offers them the opportunity to produce the vice-presidential candidate in 2019.
Only time will tell if the national convention will hold and who emerges as the national chairman.
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