Mass defection looms in PDP over zoning arrangment - Politics

Deputy national publicity secretary of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Abdullahi Jalo, is threatening to dump the party over the decision of the National Executive Committee (NEC) that the North-east should produce the party’s national chairman at its national convention.

Board of Trustees (BoT) members had Thursday, boycotted NEC meeting, where zoning of the party’s national chairmanship was ratified based on a report submitted to it by the zoning committee, led by Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja on Friday, PDP national deputy publicity secretary, Mr. Abdullahi Jalo, stressed that the NEC’s decision was wrong and “will spell doom for the PDP,” saying he has begun wide consultations and is considering the possibility of leaving the party.

Jalo argued that with the zoning of the chairmanship to the North-east and the presidential ticket to the north in general, there were indications that the North-west would produce the party’s presidential candidate for 2019, while the PDP national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, would likely contest and retain his position at the convention slated for May 21, 2016 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State
He hinted that some BoT members and former ministers were also not happy about the development and were likely to defect.

“There is a sitting APC president from the North-west, which is Muhammadu Buhari. In the whole of North-west, we have only one member of house of assembly from Kaduna South, and four members of House of Representatives,” Jalo observed.

“How do you think a presidential ticket there can produce the expected result with Buhari as a sitting president? This is my calculation, I may be wrong.

“But had it been that the presidential ticket is taken to the North-east, we have two state governors – Gombe and Taraba. And other states from the zone that are not PDP might likely give PDP votes. Then, you now go and get the votes from the South-west, South-east and South-south, in 2019,” he explained.