Dokpesi lobbies South-West leaders for PDP chair ahead Lagos meeting today

SOME eminent members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have begun intense lobbying of party leaders in the South-West for the position of national chairman at next month’s national convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

One of them is the proprietor of Daar Communications, owners of Ray Power and African Independent Television (AIT), Dr Raymond Dokpesi, who has written a letter intimating them individually of his intention to contest for the post already zoned to the Southern part of the country.

This came amidst indications that some influential PDP caucuses across the country were keen on having a former Minister of Education, Professor Tunde Adeniran and another chieftain, Chief Olabode George, join the fray.

It is only the South-West out of the six zones in the country that was yet to occupy the seat since the birth of PDP in 1998.

Dokpesi is from Edo State in the South-South zone, where the hitherto acting national chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus, comes from, while all substantive chairmen came from the North.

The party had zoned its presidential ticket for 2019 to the northern axis, but the South-East produced deputy Senate President in the current political dispensation.

Some powerful caucuses in the northern wing of the party were believed to favour Professor Adeniran (South-West) becoming the next chairman, because of “his pedigree and contribution to the growth of the party since its inception.”

However, Dokpesi, in justifying his serious lobbying of the South-West leaders to back his ambition, said it was meant to place PDP in a vantage position to return to power in 2019.

In his letter to them sent by MMS, he stated: “under my watch in the PDP, our country, Nigeria, can indeed achieve greatness in the true meaning of the words in a manner not known since our independence in 1960.”

Meanwhile, the South-West leaders are to hold a make or mar meeting in Lagos today, as part their ongoing moves to cement all cracks and harmonise the structures of the party in the six states in the zone ahead the convention.