According to him, that was the agreement reached ahead of the party’s botched Port Harcourt convention.
Kashamu stated this in a statement released on Sunday, chronicling the detailed perceived intrigues working against the interest of the region, allegedly being orchestrated by the national caretaker chairman of the party, Senator Ahmed Makarfi.
He accused the national caretaker committee of attempt to manipulate the forthcoming convention to satisfy a micro interest that could derail the on-going reconciliation process at bringing the party back into reckoning stronger.
He said it was frustrating that rather than working for the convention to finally heal the wound of the party from the last election, some governors and the national chairman of the party were busy perfecting plans to suit their personal interest against the general interest of millions of party members nationwide.
According to Kashamu, “I urge our existing founding fathers, all PDP party men and women , convention delegates from the entire North, the South East, South West and South South including Governor Wike himself, to allow the voice of reason prevail and allow the emergence of the first-ever South West national chairman of the PDP as previously agreed pre-Port Harcourt convention. Let’s jointly and severally prevent the hijacking of the PDP which, more likely than not, would lead to her dismemberment.”
He alleged that signals from the national caretaker committee towards the upcoming convention portends danger for the resurgence of the party.
“The forthcoming elective PDP national convention would rank first in the mischievously muddled up zoning arrangements of party offices in the history of the party. Even at the inception of the PDP when the presidential ticket was contentious and generally zoned to the South, it was after being robustly debated by all the six zones and unanimously resolved in the interest of party unity and prevailing national exigencies without clandestine moves.
“Not only that, the electoral process of that convention, particularly the delegates compilation, was painstakingly transparent, lacking in impunity and easily verifiable, unlike current disobedience of court judgements/orders and these outright ceding of party state structures to favourites. That’s the legacy upon which PDP was built by the founding fathers unlike this Makarfi’s work-to-answer manipulations. Witnessing this ongoing charade, one can’t but salute the PDP founding fathers for their uncommon integrity and penchant to public order and service. The least that could be done to the memory of Solomon Lar, Chief Awoniyi, Dr Alex Ekwueme etc, being the dead amongst them; is for major stakeholders to rise in unison to obstruct the current administrative manipulations of some few people in chanced official positions over the multitudes. Otherwise, how can a generally agreed national chairmanship zoned to the Southwest pre-Port Harcourt convention now become indefinable under an unelected Makarfi as chairman?
“The unambiguously credible position of the Northern Elders Forum to support the previously agreed popular zoning of the National Chairmanship to the Southwest is very honourable and highly commendable. However, the flagrant betrayal of the North by Senator Makarfi through the instigation of his Kaduna PDP state chairman to issue a statement counter to that of these elders under a somewhat PDP Northern chairmen forum is indeed preposterous. Makarfi has indeed allowed his undeserved presidential ambition to becloud his decisions and actions in this his interim caretaker position. How on earth does Makarfi think that his genuflecting to Governor Wike would endear PDP national unity and progress? Carrying such absurdity to the ridiculous extent of confronting his primary Northern constituency, all because of his blind ambitious mirage is really pitiable.”