By Dirisu Yakubu



Port Harcourt- Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2019 general elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has been advised to pick his running mate from the South West geo-political zone or perish the thought of securing the support of its people at the polls.

This advice is coming 48 hours after the former Vice President beat eleven others at a special national convention in Port Harcourt, to emerge the party’s flag bearer.

A PDP chieftain of South West extraction and member of the convention planning committee told our correspondent in confidence late on Sunday night that the advice became necessary in view of the “ill treatment,” meted out to the zone by the party in recent times.

According to him, the entire PDP family is ready to work tirelessly for the victory of the party, adding however that equity must not again be glossed over in picking the running mate on the party’s Presidential ballot.

Bemoaning what he described as “the denial of the South West the position of the national chairmanship of our party,” in the December 2017 convention; the PDP bigwig said should the zone be looked over again in the choice of a running mate; it would mean that equity and fairness no longer mean anything to the party.

He said: “Now that we have a candidate to challenge President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019, we must be fair to the South West which has been taken for granted in the scheme of things for quite a while now. Anything short of the Vice Presidency slot will not be acceptable to our people.

“Last year, a lot of intrigues played out at our convention and we were denied the opportunity to produce the chairman. A prominent Nigerian and one of our leaders, Bode George backed out of the race and a few others who couldn’t comprehend what was going on left for other parties.

“But we stayed on and were able to prevail on our people to have faith in the party.

Now that the convention has come and gone, I advise our candidate to pick his running mate from the South West to win majority of our people’s votes.”

He advised the ruling party to demonstrate sufficient faith in democracy by conducting a variant of the Port Harcourt convention for a start.

He noted that for not pushing the consensus option, the leadership of Prince Uche Secondus has shown that democracy is “alive and kicking in the party.”

He added: “They shut the doors against others just to affirm President Buhari obviously for fear of the unknown. In our case, we proved to the world that democracy is alive and kicking in the party as we conducted the most credible Presidential primary election in the history of democracy in our country.

tochukwuifediba:
trash He must Pick South East we have the biggest political block in Nigeria

RockHard:


Atiku will get SE votes regardless of where his VP comes from so no need wasting the slot on them. SE is PDP, PDP is SE.

tochukwuifediba:
trash He must Pick South East we have the biggest political block in Nigeria

tochukwuifediba:
[s]those pushing Atiku to Pick a South West VP are his worst enemy who want him to fail trust me his south West VP will decamp and congratulate Buhari before INEC finish announcing result[/s]

tochukwuifediba:


most lame argument this is politics we are not foolish mind you if we fail to get the VP slot instead of voting APC we shall stay at home and do another thing which will give Buhari a huge boast and victory .

Dont forget Igbo votes all over Nigeria .

Either South East VP or Buhari continue

RockHard:


Atiku will get SE votes regardless of where his VP comes from so no need wasting the slot on them. SE is PDP, PDP is SE.

ORIENTATION101:
open eyes and see pdp has schemed yorubas out of the party.wike told our leaders to go to hell when it was the turn to produce chairman.if south west eventually vote for atiku south south and east will take over his govt and yorubas will be reduced to mere followers of the party.
a vote for buhari is vote for osibanjo and fashola.
pdp did nothing for yorubas from 1999 till date. the infrastructures we enjoy re done by our governors.
apc has embarked on big infrastructural projects that will be delivered by december and first quarter of 2019.
dont allow igbos to blackmail us to vote pdp that did nothing for us

RockHard:


I repeat. PDP is SE , SE is PDP. No point wasting the slot on them because since '99, the zone has been consistently voting for PDP. The hatred of Buhari by Igbos is more than enough to galvanize them to vote against him without a VP slot. That is the plain and simple truth that everyone knows.

basilo101:

Afonja. How far with oyo 100+ billion IGR projection?

Henrypraise41:
the south easterners are watching.

basilo101:

There will be voter apathy in the east and the West will still not vote for him.

IbrahimDamola:
yorubas should stop being greedy and trying to deceive Atiku into handing his political fortunes to unreliable SW and sideling SE and SS.
You cannot eat your cake and have it. You kicked out PDP from your region and want to benefit from same. It's not done. The SE and SS will not be sidelined in order to pander to undependable SW greed that are still under the hypnotic machinations of tinubu. Ko le shele.

We yoruba should go and pick our towel where we took our bath. We cannot bath in river osun and go to river niger to pick our towel. That's madness.

RockHard:


That is a lie. SE will vote en masse for Atiku because he has promised to sign an undertaken to do only one term. That is why most of their delegates voted for him. He knows SE votes na sure banker regardless of any VP position.

basilo101:

Afonja. We are not zombies whose votes are controlled by the ordinate ambition of one man

RockHard:


That is a lie. SE will vote en masse for Atiku because he has promised to sign an undertaken to do only one term. That is why most of their delegates voted for him. He knows SE votes na sure banker regardless of any VP position.

RockHard:


Lol. E dey really pain you that SW might get the VP slot. Even after GEJ got no less than 40% from SW in 2015, and the recent results from Ekiti and Osun, you still regurgitate that trash about your imaginary one man controlling SW. Igbos are more zombified than SW because you people are the ones that give bloc votes as long as it is for PDP. Igbo's give as much as 80% bloc votes to PDP. No party can ever get that much in SW no matter who is on the ticket.

PaChukwudi44:


why not wait and get the VP first before gloating

PaChukwudi44:


no one has the SE votes en bloc.If Atiku picks a SW VP he is almost assured to lose the elction as a majority of the SW people will still not vote for him ad the SE will be angry and lots of them will not vote