National Convention: PDP not blackmailed to accept Port Harcourt venue- Spokesperson

Contrary to insinuations in certain quarters that the choice of Port Harcourt as venue of Saturday’s national convention was forced on People’s Democratic Party (PDP) by certain interest in the party led by Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, the party has said the choice was unanimously made.

Spokesperson of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan at a media parley Tuesday said PDP was not blackmailed into accepting the Port Harcourt venue.

Daily times recall that a section of the media had last Saturday reported that the party bowed to Wike’s choice of Port Harcourt at its last National Executive Council meeting in Abuja.

Ologbondiyan said, “The choice of Port Harcourt was unanimously adopted at the 82nd NEC meeting of our party. The issue of venue was put to vote and majority voted in favour of Port Harcourt. So, it cannot be true to say that the party was blackmailed into accepting the venue”.

He reiterated the party’s resolve to be unbiased in the conduct of the presidential primary while assuring delegates of a successful conduct of the convention.

To showcase he clarity of the process, the spokesperson said “the party is very concern about the process and will carry every aspirant along.

“Each aspirant will nominate two supporters to be part of the Electoral Committee. This is to show transparency, credibility and to show that PDP as a party has no preference among the aspirants.

“The convention will be transparent, clean, clear, credible and acceptable to all. The process will be beamed live on national television stations.

Also, the party will publish a list of accredited delegates that will participate and every aspirant will be given a copy of the list for verification.

“All state chairmen of the party will introduce delegates from heir states for accreditation. I am her confident that the process we have adopted is very credible”.

He said confidently that there will not be post-convention crisis because of the process on ground but should there be any at all, he promised that the party has an internal crisis management mechanism.