THE zoning policy of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is now a dead issue, going by the assertion of the new National Chairman of the party, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, who declared that it had indeed been abandoned since 1999.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, on Wednesday, he was emphatic that the PDP had jettisoned the policy and anyone wanting to contest for any elective position under the party was free to do so.
However, he said that if the party members wanted the issue revisited, he was prepared to set the necessary machinery in motion for a new zoning formula for the party.
Dr. Nwodo spoke, just as it was revealed that former governor of Abia State and chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA), Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, was planning to return to the PDP.
Dr. Nwodo’s position is coming as agitations continue for President Goodluck Jonathan to contest next year’s presidential election against the perceived zoning of the position to the North.
He said: “I said to BBC and I repeat to you again that zoning in PDP has been jettisoned. There is no zoning on the ground right now. Absolutely there is no zoning. In 1999, there was zoning and only one northerner insisted on his inalienable right in the Nigerian Constitution to contest against the zoning arrangement of the PDP.
“The PDP put its foot down and I wrote a letter to him and returned his cheque. That is Abubakar Rimi of blessed memory. In 2003, after four years of Obasanjo, candidates sprang up from across the country. They paid; they canvassed. Nobody returned their money. Nobody wrote them that there was zoning.
“In 2007, there were more candidates from southern Nigeria than northern Nigeria and I think if that election was allowed to hold without interference; maybe anybody among Peter Odili, Donald Duke or Sam Egwu, would have won. They all paid. Nobody returned their money. Nobody stopped them.
Nobody talked about zoning. They all contested. Why zoning now? Why?,” he said.
The party boss added: “We have jettisoned it but we can revisit it. I’m not afraid about revisiting it. If we think that we need to revisit zoning today, let us revisit zoning. But the one we did in 1999, no, no, no, no, it has been jettisoned by PDP itself.
“So those who are talking about that agreement are not following the history of the party. The party has never stopped anybody after 1999 on the altar of zoning. But if they want us to zone now, we will go through the mill. We will start from the National Working Committee. We will prepare a memo on the advantages and the disadvantages of zoning. We will take the memo to the caucus,” Dr Nwodo said.
“The parliament and the government will make their inputs on which way to go. We will take it to the BOT; we drink from their wealth of experience, the conscience of the party; we will modify the scale with their inputs and then we have the final debate at NEC, which takes final decision for PDP.
“Right now, nobody can get up and tell me there was zoning or there is no zoning. If we want to zone, we have to go through this process because the earlier arrangement on zoning is not working any more,” he declared.
Meanwhile, machinery has been set in motion for the possible return to the PDP of former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State, who, it was learnt, had made approaches to the new national chairman of the party.
A senior party source told the Nigerian Tribune, on Wednesday, that Kalu had told Nwodo his desire to return to PDP, even before he was appointed chairman, saying at the time that if Dr Nwodo emerged the party boss, he would rejoin the PDP.
The source revealed that Kalu was now set to fulfill the pledge he made by abandoning the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA), which had been in crisis, the latest being the defection of the Abia State governor, Chief Theodore Orji, to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Nwodo was said to have discussed the impending return of the former governor with members of the NWC in their meeting in Abuja, on Wednesday, where they agreed to invite him to appear before them on Monday next week.
However, the national chairman of the PPA, Mr Larry Esin, has dismissed speculations that Chief Kalu was about to dump the party for the PDP.
In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Esin said though there had been negotiations with the PDP, Chief Kalu would not join the party.
According to him, “the board of trustees (BoT) chairman is not leaving the PPA. There have been talks with the PDP but he cannot join the party before the 2011 election.”
Meanwhile, members of the House of Representatives who are sympathetic to the cause of the 11 suspended members, have commenced moves aimed at recalling them, the Nigerian Tribune has gathered.
Female members of the House, who initiated the move, had been lobbying their male counterparts to put pressure on the House leadership on the need to show mercy to Honourable Dino Melaye and other members of his group.
The lawmakers were intervening because of the political realities facing the suspended lawmakers, especially the possibility that they might not be able to seek re-election in the 2011 election.
Honourable Fatimat Raji Rasaki, who is the vice chairman, House Committee on Women Affairs, led other members in the plea for the return of the suspended lawmakers, especially one of the female legislators, Honourable Doris Uboh.
On Monday, however, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, alluded to this when he raised the hope on the possible recall of the lawmakers.
Bankole had visited the City Royal Secondary School, Nyanya, Abuja, to apologise to students of the school who witnessed the fracas in the parliament during their excursion and told correspondents that the issue of the suspended lawmakers was being reconsidered.
Moral Prefect of the school, David Sunday, had, in his opening remark during the Speaker’s visit, urged the House leadership to imbibe the spirit of humility as shown by the speaker, who came to beg the students for forgiveness and forgive the lawmakers who were suspended.
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