By Emma Ogbuehi
After days of hardball political negotiations, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday finally zoned the chairmanship position to the North.
The implication of the new zoning arrangement is that the party will naturally zone the presidential ticket for the 2023 elections to the South baring any last minute political intrigues.
This has been the clamour of Southern Governors Forum that insisted the presidency must come to the South after eight years of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency.
Before now, most of the presidential aspirants are from the North, while those angling for the chairmanship are from the South.
A member of the committee set up by the PDP to decide the knotty zoning formula of the party told TheNiche Thursday evening that the PDP Governors brokered the deal.
“It is actually PDP Governors that met yesterday and agreed that the chairmanship should go to the North and the presidency should come to the South. When we met again today, they just briefed us on their decision and we agreed with them. So, that is the position of the committee and we are moving ahead with it,” our source said.
But TheNiche gathered that it was not an easy decision as Northerners came to Enugu in three chartered aircraft insisting that the status quo in the party – chairmanship in the South and presidential ticket in the North must be maintained.
But the entire members of the committee from the South, without any exception, insisted that the presidency must come to the South.
There was a deadlock before the governors saved the day.
The implication of the new zoning arrangement is that the quest by former Osun State governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to become the next national chairman of the PDP has come to an end.
Reading out the communique to journalists at the end of its meeting which lasted several hours, chairman of the PDP zoning committee and governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, said offices hitherto held by Southerners would go the way of Northerners and vice versa.
This he noted, is in compliance with the party’s constitutional provision in the spirit of fairness, justice and equity.
“The decision of the PDP zoning committee is in line with the constitution of the party on zoning and rotation of party and national offices in the interest of justice, equity and fairness.
“Consequently, the current offices being held by officers in the Southern zones of the country, namely, South-West, South-East and South-South zones, should swap places with the offices currently in the Northern zones of Nigeria, namely, North-West, North-East and North-Central zones,” he said.
But Ugwuanyi, who emphasized that the mandate of the committee “does not include zoning of the offices of the President, Vice President and other executive and legislative offices of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” said “the decision of the committee to zone the party offices does not in any way affect the executive and legislative offices in Nigeria.”
But it is unlikely that the party’s chairman will come from the North as well as the presidential flag bearer.
Zoning of offices in the PDP has traditionally been between the North and South of Nigeria.
And the zone that produces the chairman does not at teh same time produce the presidential candidate.
Bu Ugwuanyi said, “We shall pass on our recommendations to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party through the National Working Committee.”
With this development, the North is expected to produce the national treasurer, national woman leader, national organizing secretary, national legal adviser and national youth leader while the offices of the national secretary, national publicity secretary, national financial secretary, national auditor and national woman leader go the way of the South at the October 31 national convention.
Although the committee distanced itself from permutations pertaining to the zoning of national executives in 2023, the Presidential ambitions of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, Governor Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), Bala Mohammed (Bauchi) and Bukola Saraki may have come to an end.
Even if the party throws the presdiential race open to both the South and the North in line with the recommendation of the Bala Mohammed committee on the review of the performance of the PDP in the 2019 Presidential election, it is unlikely that the North will produce the chairman and presidential ticket.
The meeting was attended by the deputy chairman of the committee and governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, deputy governor of Zamfara State and secretary of the committee, Aliyu Mahdi, ex-Senate Presidents, Anyim Pius Anyim and David Mark among others.