Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State, who chairs the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Convention Zoning Committee, announced on Monday that the committee has been directed by the party leadership to recommend zoning of the presidential ticket ahead of the 2027 general election.
Mr Diri disclosed this in his opening remarks at a meeting of the committee in Abuja, held just before the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for later in the day.
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He said the decision to zone the presidency was concluded at an earlier meeting of the PDP Governors’ Forum in Gusau, Zamfara State, on Saturday, where representatives of the Board of Trustees (BOT), former governors, ministers, and other organs of the party were in attendance.
“At the meeting in Gusau, in Zamfara States, the party was also represented, the BOT was also represented, and other organs of the party were represented, former governors, former ministers were represented, and one of the decisions that was arrived on in that meeting is that we should not only zone the party offices, but as a national zoning committee, that we should equally zone the presidency. So that arose from that meeting,” Mr Diri explained.
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On 14 August, the PDP acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, inaugurated the 44-member zoning committee to recommend how the party’s national offices will be distributed across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones ahead of its next elective national convention.
Zoning controversies in PDP
In the recent past, zoning of the presidential ticket has been a contentious issue within the PDP.
Traditionally, the NEC sets up committees to recommend how national offices and the presidential ticket should be shared among Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. However, the party’s failure to reach consensus in the past has often generated internal crises.
For instance, a 37-member zoning committee led by former Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, was divided in the buildup to the 2023 elections. Southern leaders insisted the ticket should be reserved for the South in the spirit of fairness, while northern leaders argued it should remain in the North because of the region’s perceived lack of benefit from the 2019 election outcome.
The disagreement forced the PDP to throw the contest open, a decision that paved the way for former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, from Adamawa State in the North-east, to emerge as the party’s flagbearer.
That decision deepened the crisis within the opposition party at the time, which forced some members of the party and five governors led by former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, to oppose Atiku’s emergence and work against him during the election.
Mr Wike, now the FCT minister, was an aspirant but lost to the former vice president in the primary election.
Atiku, who was also the party’s presidential candidate in the 2019 election, has since resigned from the party under which he became the country’s vice president in 1999.
NEC to take the final decision
Although the Diri-led zoning committee has been mandated to make recommendations, the NEC remains the final authority to approve or reject its proposals.
READ ALSO: PDP Reps caucus endorses party’s efforts to end crises ahead of 2027 polls
During the committee’s meeting, the Bayelsa governor expressed confidence that the party leadership would embrace the committee’s work.
“After we gave our reports, what we have done in our last meeting, they were happy with our reports, but now also directed that we should go ahead, that even by the section of the constitution of our party that they quoted in our appointment letters, it is clear that we need to do the zoning of both the party offices and the presidency.
“So today, we are also going to look at that, and the same today, as we are all aware, we have, the NEC meeting, National Executive Committee meeting at 2 p.m., and that is why we convened this meeting earlier than the NEC meeting, so that we will take far-reaching decisions and finish our job, and our assignment, and report back to NEC of what we have done,” he added.
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