PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:PDP SET TO DETHRONE BUHARI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 — 13th November 2017

From BENEDICT ODINAKA EZEOKA.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday vowed to launch back to power at the centre in 2019.

The PDP was dislodged as the ruling party after the 2015 presidential election by the All Progressives Congress (APC) after it held power for 16 consecutive years.

The PDP governors rising from a meeting with the leaders of the party from across the country held at the Enugu State Government House said that the party was set again to wrest power from the APC at the centre.

The PDP Governors Forum Chairman and governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose, who briefed newsmen after the meeting that lasted from 6:00p.m to 12:08a.m yesterday said that the party is equally ready to win the Anambra governorship election slated to hold on Saturday.

On the agreements reached at the meeting, he said: “We have equally agreed believing that we have what it takes to take over Anambra and I believe that our people in Anambra have worked very well to deserve victory. We are using this opportunity to ask that, that election should be credible, not only being credible, but must be seen to be credible. We want to believe that Nigeria is of age to do an election that is acceptable internationally, home and abroad, and we want to believe that we will take the day on the 18^th of this month in the Anambra governorship election.”

However, an insider in the meeting toldDaily Sun that the kernel of discussion was the election of a national chairman for the party, as well as its national convention scheduled to hold on December 9, all things being equal, which Fayose corroborated.

His words: “Today, we met in the Enugu State Government House and deliberated on our national convention and we took time off to discuss with the chairmanship aspirants, believing that we would want to have a convention that all the parties in Nigeria will emulate, a convention that will represent the word democracy, that will serve as a template for the other parties.

“We have responsible people vying for the office of chairman of the PDP nationally and we are on one page and the page is the PDP first and the PDP first.

“Our aspirants, the PDP chairmanship aspirants, have agreed to work together so that whoever emerges as the chairman of the party will be supported by the other ones.”

The chairmanship aspirants of the party that attended the meeting included Otunba Gbenga Daniel, Chief Raymond Dokposi, Chief Jimi  Agbaje, Chief Bode George, Prof Tunde Adeniran, and Rasheed Ladoja.

Daily Sun gathered that all the aspirants before going in to meet with the governors had earlier met in Enugu to see if they could harmonise and reach a consensus.

It was also gathered that the governors made frantic efforts to narrow down the number of the aspirants, which appeared difficult.

A source at the meeting said that the difficulty made the meeting to agree that before the week runs out all the chairmanship aspirants would return to the national secretariat of the party in Abuja to sign an undertaking to abide by the outcome of the election at the convention.

The source also said that the meeting agreed that the chairmanship slot was still zoned to the South and would not be de-zoned.

The PDP governors who attended the meeting were: the host governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Seriake Dickson  (Bayelsa), Nyesom Wike  (Rivers), Ayodele Fayose  (Ekiti), Ben Ayade (Cross River), Emmanuel  Udom  (Akwa Ibom), Darius Ishiaku  (Taraba), Ibrahim Dankwambo  (Gombe) and Ifeanyi Okowa  (Delta) while Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) was absent.

Other leaders of the party at the meeting were Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, former Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, former Anambra governor, Mr Peter Obi; former Benue governor, Gabriel Suswan; former Akwa Ibom governor, Godswin Akpabio; PDP Caretaker Committee Chairman, Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi, PDP National Caretaker Secretary, Chief Ben Obi; former Aviation Minister, Mrs Kema Chikwe; Mrs Josephine Aneni, Chief Tom Ikimi, among others