Lagos zoning consultative meeting legitimate – PDP leaders insist

By Luminous Jannamike

ABUJA – Amid controversy over a zoning consultative meeting held in Lagos, leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have insisted that the gathering was legitimate and part of the party’s official processes.

The meeting, which took place at the Legend Hotel on Thursday, was disowned by some southern stakeholders.

But key PDP figures dismissed the criticism, stressing that it was in line with the party’s structured approach to decision-making.

Elder Emma Ogidi, South-South Zonal Caretaker Committee Chairman, and Timothy Osadolor, PDP Deputy National Youth Leader, spoke in separate exclusive interviews with Vanguard in Abuja, addressing the controversy and reaffirming the party’s commitment to its procedures.

Ogidi, who attended the Lagos meeting, downplayed the objections raised by some stakeholders.

“Let them disown (the Lagos meeting), man. That’s their business. We are doing consultations. That’s all,” he said.

The meeting was attended by prominent PDP leaders, including Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor Duoye Diri of Bayelsa State (who also chairs the party’s leadership zoning committee), former Ebonyi Governor Sam Egwu, former Ondo Military Administrator Chief Olabode George, and PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) Chairman and former Senate President Adolphus Wabara, among others.

The controversy followed a statement by some PDP stakeholders from the Southeast and South-South, including House Minority Leader Kingsley Chinda and several state party chairmen, who described the Lagos parley as ‘illegal’ and declared that its outcomes were not binding on the southern caucus.

However, Osadolor argued that the committee had the mandate to deliberate and make recommendations.

“If the committee was mandated by the party’s NEC, the highest decision-making organ of the PDP after the convention, to go and do zoning and all of that, it means the committee has the reserved right and the necessary authority to meet and agree on how to go about it,” he said.

He explained that the committee’s work would still go through the National Executive Committee (NEC).

“When they come to NEC, they will present a comprehensive report of what they have agreed upon for NEC to take a decision upon. So it is now left for NEC to say we ratify or we veto,” he explained.

Osadolor pointed to the upcoming NEC meeting scheduled for August 25 and the National Convention from November 16 to 18 as the official platforms for resolving zoning and other key matters.

“At the last NEC, monitored by INEC, which INEC also participated in, and the media, members of the press, including your humble self, witnessed, we agreed to have another NEC on the 25th of August.

“Therefore, if you have not heard from NEC otherwise, and the NWC otherwise, it is out of place to be speculating that which is not in official domains or in an official circle. A lot of things can be said in beer parlours, a lot of things can be said in marketplaces, but the official communication with the party is true.

“The zoning committee has a clear mandate to fulfil. Until it reports back to the NEC on its work and process, there is no cause for alarm.”

He further emphasised that the committee had the discretion to hold its sessions anywhere.

“It is no longer the affair of the larger party body or group. It is members of that committee that have a resource right to go to Kaura Namoda in Zamfara or to go to Kafanchan or to come back to open markets to do it,” he said.

Osadolor urged members to remain focused on official party resolutions.

“Until there are contrary decisions or resolutions, the programme of the party is very much on course and in order. I would not want to subject myself to thinking what people think or what people feel so long as the party has not made its own resolution,” he added.

The Lagos meeting has exposed widening divisions within the PDP, particularly among its southern leaders, as the party prepares for its national convention in Ibadan, Oyo State, where a new set of national officers will be elected.

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