The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, has announced that the party’s ticket for the next Presidential election in 2023, would be open to all party members, Page 36 learnt.
According to him: “Everyone who is qualified, young, old, Governors and non-Governors, is qualified, and will have the opportunity to contest, and we have the space for everyone.”
The Southern part of the country had been agitating that the PDP honours its zoning arrangement, and allows the zone to produce the next President of the country, when the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, from the North, would have completed his second term of four years in Office.
However, Secondus, noting that zoning is entrenched in the PDP constitution said: “At the right time, you (Newsmen) will hear from us. However, the party is very democratic. There is no room for discrimination.”
The PDP National Chairman spoke in Bauchi State, when he led a Delegation of the party’s Chieftains to pay a solidarity visit to Governor Bala Mohammed.
Secondus was accompanied by the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Taibuwal, a former Senate President, David Mark, former Governor of Gombe State, Hassan Ibrahim Dankwambo, and the Deputy National Chairman of the party, North, Senator Nazif Sulieman Gamawa.
Responding to a question on the recent defection of former House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, to the All Progressives Congress, APC, Secondus said:
“There is no rift. The political space is so wide in Nigeria, and anyone that is not comfortable will move, and we have seen such moves before. They will move and come back. That is the assurance I want to give to you.”