PDP Still Maintains Its Zoning Arrangement Despite Atiku’s Emergence- PDP Chieftain Speaks On Party Crisis

Former PDP Deputy National Secretary, Emmanuel Agbo has explained how the People’s Democratic Party still held on to the zoning arrangement despite the emergence of the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar as its standard bearer for the 2023 election.

Agbo who featured on the Tuesday edition of Arise TV Morning Show also spoke extensively on the myriad of crisis currently rocking the party.

Since the emergence of Atiku as the party’s presidential candidate and Ifeanyi Okowa as running mate, the party has been heavily polirized into Wike and Atiku’s camp. 

The Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike has issued some conditions to the party if he must support Atiku’s candidacy.

Part of the conditions is for the National Party chairman, Iyorchia Ayu to resign for a Southerner to take over the affairs of the party as agreed before the primary.

However, one major issue that has become a source of endless debate is the issue of zoning in the party. It was argued that PDP initially conceded to zone its presidential ticket to the southern region for the sake of equity.

But with the influence of Atiku and his financial stamina, he was able to have his way at the primary to grab the ticket. Hence, the party was believed to have reneged on its zoning agreement.

Speaking on the matter on the live TV show, the former Deputy National Secretary of the party said there is no way it was agreed that the ticket would be zoned to the South in 2023.

According to him, the initial arrangement was that if Atiku had won the 2019 election, the presidential ticket would automatically go to the South because the rotation would have been completed by then. 

Although Atiku won the election but he was denied his mandate. Since he was manipulated by the power that be, the party had no choice but to throw the ticket open for 2023.

He said he was among the party leaders who were at the meeting where the decision to throw the ticket open was made. 

He said the reason was because Atiku was denied his mandate in 2019 and as such, everybody should be allowed to contest for the presidential ticket. 

Eventually, Atiku won the primary. In a way, PDP has not violated its zoning formula with the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as party’s presidential candidate.