Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is set to formally declare interest in the Chairmanship of the party, as top members are expected to hit Lagos on Friday for the event from across the six geo-political zones of the federation.
As announced by the Organising Committee, the venue of the event is City Hall, Mission Street, Lagos Island.
The interest of the A’tona Oodua in the PDP Chairmanship is predicated on resolve by the party to zone the position to southwest.
Although zoning of the slot of PDP Chairman to south-west has continued to generate ripples as the south-south zone is said to be showing keen interest also, indications are rife that the leaders of PDP have been meeting to resolve the issue.
Newspot Nigerian learnt that top leaders of PDP in the south-south have also been meeting to take a common position on the Chairmanship issue such that the zone would eventually work in harmony with the southwest to produce the next leader of the party.
PDP has been taking cautious and conscious steps towards making its next National Convention where new set of leaders would be elected, a huge success.
The opposition party had suffered near collapse amid multiple crises which it contended with for more than a year following the emergence of former governor of Borno State, Alhaji Modu Sheriff as the National Chairman, just as litigations trailed every attempt it made to elect new set of leaders.
Repreive came the way of PDP a couple of weeks ago, when the Supreme Court recognized the leadership of Senator Ahmed Makarfi as Chairman Caretaker Committee, while the court judgement completely dislodged Modu Sheriff.
Some months earlier, the South-south and South-east leaders of the PDP had agreed at a meeting in Port Harcourt to zone the National Chairmanship position of the party to the South West geo-political zone.
The leaders of PDP had predicated their preference for south-west on the party’s leadership on the fact that the zone has never produced a Chairman before.
In the same vein, the PDP had zoned the position of First Deputy National Chairman to the South-South.
The South-South also got the positions of National Legal Adviser, Deputy National Women Leader and Deputy National Auditor.
According to the zoning formula released by the Ike Ekweremadu Reconciliation Committee in 2016, the South-East got the National Organising Secretary, National Youth Leader and Deputy National Financial Secretary.
There are reports that leaders of the PDP from the south are to meet again before the coming National Convention to mitigate tension over the zoning arrangement as part of efforts to prevent another implosion within the ranks of the opposition party.
