Nigeria: PDP warned against zoning 2023 presidential ticket outside South

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) risks mass defections if it fails to zone the 2023 presidency to Southern Nigeria, a group, Vanguard for Justice, has warned. 

The PDP support group claimed that the party was bent on zoning its presidential ticket to the North, a move it said might prompt high-profile defections in the South.

The main opposition party had recently denied zoning the presidency to the North following claim by former Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, that it had perfected the move.

But the group, in a statement yesterday, by its Chairman, Emmanuel Nduka, submitted that zoning the presidency to the South would not only engender national unity, equity and justice, but was consistent with the mood of the nation.

The statement reads: “On Monday, January 17, 2022, governors elected on the platform of Nigeria’s main opposition party, the PDP conveyed a high-powered meeting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. The meeting was hosted by no other than the strongman of Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike, and presided over by the Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal.

“According to the governors, they had converged to review the state of the nation, and chart a way forward, especially with 2023 around the corner. At the end of the meeting, the governors released a nine-point communiqué, which formed their resolutions. But beyond this, the party does not seem (cared) for 2023, or what may even precede it.

“The All Progressives Congress (APC), led by President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner, has spent eight years in power. The PDP, as a party, is planning to take power back to the North again. This may prompt an already impending mass exodus of PDP members to the APC, being that they feel that the APC will zone presidential power to the South, which is the right thing to do.

“This is a wind that may blow very soon, and it will come as a rude shock to the PDP. More so, it may be the end of the PDP in Nigeria’s political space.”

source: guardian.ng