SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, (THEWILL) – The national caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has scheduled the national convention to elect its new officers that would take over from the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee for Thursday, August 17, 2016.
The Chairman of the party’s National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi told newsmen that the convention, like the May 21 controversial national convention, will also hold in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital.
Noting that the expanded caucus meeting discussed the programmes leading to new convention, he said the caucus agreed that the next national chairman of the party would come from the South, adding that it was left for the three geopolitical zones in the South to decide which of them would fill the position of the national chairman.
Makarfi explained that this decision was reached in order to balance the power equation in the party since it had been agreed that the party’s presidential candidate would come from the North in 2019.
During the last botched national convention, the party had zoned the office of the national chairman to the North-West, an action that was protested by the leaders of the party from the South-West.
The zone was initially scheduled to produce the national chairman until the then National Chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff, showed interest in the position. He later emerged as the sole chairmanship candidate from the zone and cancelled the convention which produced the national caretaker committee chaired by Makarfi and gave him three months to conduct a fresh convention.
The former Kaduna governor however stated that the party was still open to accepting all those who were with the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff-led faction, expressing hope that peace would have returned to the troubled party before the convention date.
His words, “We discussed some programmes leading to the convention, meaning that the national convention will hold on August 17 where we will elect new national executive officers of the party.
“We also discussed about zoning. Within the next few days, a committee will be set up on zoning. The convention set aside the previous zoning arrangement. So, a new zoning arrangement have to be made and we have agreed that within the next 48 hours, this committee should be put in place and given a week to come up with a new zoning arrangement.
“But, of course, the committee should take a cue from the decision taken at the Port Harcourt convention that the presidential candidate will come from the North.
“Then, of course, it is incontrovertible that the chairman of the party will come from the South and it will be open to all and not consigned to any geopolitical zone or state in the South.”
The expanded caucus is made up of the state governors, members of the Board of trustees of the party, the party’s principal officers in the National Assembly and other stakeholders.
