CORE issues like regional balance, religious inclination and past power-sharing structure in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may influence the stand of members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) coming up today in Abuja on zoning of chairmanship.
Governors elected on the ticket of the PDP set the stage for today’s meeting after endorsing the recommendation of an ad hoc committee swapping all executive positions elected in 2017. In essence, the committee headed by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuenyi of Enugu State zoned the position of national chairman held by the South to the North.
A former national officer of the party, who craved anonymity told the Nigerian Tribune that the recommendation of the committee would be subjected to robust debate and discussion to enable the party leaders to arrive at a final conclusion.
Indications on Wednesday showed that various caucuses in the party stepped up consultations in a frantic bid to put themselves in good stead over the zoning matter.
Some entrenched interests in the power game are working on how to strike a balance based on religious inclinations of prospective national chairman and secretary.
Accordingly, some forces are making a strong case for a northern Muslim emerging as the next chairman at the forthcoming convention of the party.
Their preference, they argued, would pave way for the South to produce a Christian as PDP national secretary. The proposition could technically knock out a former president of the Senate, Senator David Mark as one of the stalwarts of the party being propped up for chairmanship.
There were claims that Mark was actually interested in becoming the next Board of Trustees (BoT) of PDP.
“Mark and other influential PDP faithful from the North prefer a northern Muslim so that the South can produce a Christian as national secretary. Once you take a northern Christian as chairman, then you have restricted the national secretary, who must be a Muslim from the south. Even both Haliru Bello and Ahmed Makarfi who came from the north-west served in acting capacities,” a source stated.
Another issue said to be on the front burner reparatory to the NEC meeting is the cycle of chairmanship across the zones since the inception of PDP.
Only South-West out of the six zones in the country is yet to produce PDP national chairman since the party was founded in 1998.
An analysis of the cycle of chairmanship in the last 21 years showed that while some zones had produced chairman for three or more times, others had only a single opportunity.
David Mark is from the North-Central, which has produced five national chairmen: Chief Solomon Lar; Senator Barnabas Gemade; Dr AhmaduAlli, Kawu Baraje and Chief Audu Ogbeh.
The North-East produced chairman once in the person of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, while the northwest only had an acting chairman, in the person of Alhaji Mohammed Bello, while both Chief Vincent Ogbulafor and Okwesilieze Nwodo came from the South-East as national chairman. Prince Uche Secondus, from the South.
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