2023: PDP Abandons Zoning, Favours Northern Candidate

There are new rumors that the Peoples Democratic Party will run a candidate from the north in the 2023 presidential election.

This comes after the findings of a committee formed by the party to examine why it lost the presidential election in 2019 and make recommendations for how the party could reclaim power.

Instead of using a zoning system, the 14-member committee, led by Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, recommended that the party’s presidential ticket be open to all regions.

The party would accept the committee’s report, according to a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT), because “the majority of PDP stakeholders want the ticket to be zoned to the northern part of the country.”

He said it would be unfair to consider the South for the ticket again after spending 13 years in power during the PDP’s 16-year reign.

“The committee has completed its work, and it is now up to the stakeholders to consider the committee’s recommendations objectively and formulate a position, but I can assure you that the report will be adopted.

“They are arguing that, based on the party’s constitution, a rotational presidency is the way to go. Yes, that is correct, but current conditions prevent it because the arrangement was changed in 2010 during the Yar’Adua presidency.

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“Now, the PDP, before we were pushed out in 2015, had spent 16 years in power. Of the 16 years, the South used 13 years and some days. Former President Uma­ru Musa Yar’Adua, who took the Northern slot in 2007, only spent two years and 25 days before his demise.

“His deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, from the Southern part of the country, completed their tenure and had another four years (which Yar’Adua may have gotten if he had contested for a second term).

“With that, the South took advantage of 13 years and a few days of the PDP’s 16-year rule. So, what grounds would the PDP use to rezone it to the south, based on this explanation? It has to go north, according to logic.

Before the PDP lost power, which region produced the party’s last president and presidential candidate? It was, without a doubt, the South. That is, if some Southern stakeholders are canvassing on the basis of justice, it should return to the North.”

Also speaking, a member of the party’s National Work­ing Committee (NWC), said the PDP may need to field a Northern presidential candidate if it is serious about returning to power in 2023.

He, however, said rather than excluding any region, the party may adopt the com­mittee’s report by throwing open the ticket to all aspirants from all parts of the country so that the best among them will emerge as the candidate of the party.

According to him, it is ideal for the PDP to leverage the voting strength of the North by fielding someone from the region as a Presidential candidate.

He said: “I believe that for strategy reasons, the PDP cannot af­ford to push the presidency to the South if, indeed, we are serious about returning to power.

“If the ruling party zones to the South and PDP does the same, the reality is that the APC will emerge victorious because they already have the edge as the ruling party.

“If the PDP fields a North­ern presidential candidate and the APC fields a south­erner, the PDP will have the advantage because the North has the voting strength and all other indices that count during elections. The belief is even that if the PDP fields a Northern presidential candidate, the APC members from the North will support him.

“We all know what hap­pened in 2015 when the APC fielded President Muham­madu Buhari and some PDP members from the North sup­ported and worked for him in the background. The PDP is looking for strategic reasons to win the 2023 presidential election and, by so doing, we can’t afford to zone to the South.

“But for fairness, we won’t exclude any region, and that is why the committee has de­cided to leave it open. If a popular Southerner wins the primary, then good luck to him, we will all sup­port him.

“The issue is that the Southern PDP members know that they stand no chance in the open competi­tion and that is why they are insisting on zoning so that no northerner will compete for the ticket with them. All they want is to have it on a platter of gold. I doubt if that will happen.”

Rivers State governor, Nye­som Wike, in an interview with BBC Pidgin, said if zoning the PDP presidential ticket to the North will cause the party to win the 2023 gen­eral election, he would sup­port the decision.

The governor explained that the reason why the PDP had not taken a final decision on whether its presidential can­didate for the 2023 general election should be from the North or South of the country is that stakeholders were still strategising on the best options that would guarantee the party’s victory in the polls.

He stated that the PDP was keen to take over power in 2023 and was not in a hurry to give the ruling APC a glimpse of its strategy to wrest pow­er from it in the next general election.

“I am from the Southern part of Nigeria. I will be hap­py if power returns to the South, but if PDP will win the 2023 presidential election by zoning the presidential ticket to the North, I will not be op­posed to it,” Wike said.