Nigeria’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, says it has not taken any official position on zoning of its presidential ticket to any zone or part of the country.
The PDP stated this in an exclusive chat with African Community News Saturday evening and syndicated to The Daily Newswave.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Debo Ologunagba, stated while clarifying a news report that the party said it will not zone its presidential ticket but to allow all aspirants to participate, irrespective of their zone.
It would be recalled that a national newspaper had earlier in the day quoted the PDP spokesman as saying that the party had, irrespective of the clamour to zone the ticket to the South, the party said it would not restrict its ticket.
He was quoted to have said that- “We must rescue the country from where it is today, and in doing that, we do not have to think of where the next President would come from, but the ability, experience and integrity to work.
“In the PDP, persons from every part of the country will be allowed to contest, but we can only boast that the primary will be free, fair, transparent and credible. We cannot be talking about zones in deciding on who becomes the presidential candidate of the party.
“Everybody that qualifies to run and is interested will be allowed to run. Nobody will be stopped. We will be guided by the party’s and the country’s constitutions.
“We won’t shut anybody out of the electoral process. When the time comes, all organs of the party will however be involved in the decision-making process on the guidelines for the party’s presidential primary….”
But speaking with African Community News, Ologunagba said his comment in the earlier interview as quoted, was a personal opinion and not the stand of the PDP on zoning, emphasising that the party will take definite position on zoning at the appropriate time.
“What I said was not the PDP’s position on zoning. It was rather my personal opinion. The PDP has not taken a definite stand on zoning but would do that at the appropriate time.
“However, what is definite so far as far as the PDP is concerned is the issue of age limit. In the PDP, we are guided by the Nigerian Constitution. The constitution and the Electoral Act (as amended) stipulate the age limit for those qualified to contest for all the elective positions. The Act made provision for minimum age but did not say anything on maximum age.
“Therefore we will work with the provisions of the law on minimum age but not on maximum age as there is no law on that,” he stated.