PDP to retain Sheriff as party chairman

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has retained the party’s chairmanship position in the Northeast geopolitical zone for the next four years.

The decision may have paved the way for the incumbent National Chairman, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, to retain the position.

He will be testing his popularity at the party’s national convention billed to hold in Port Harcourt on May 21.

The decision was the outcome of the party’s zoning committee headed by Akwa Ibom State Governor Udom Emmanuel and was adopted at yesterday’s party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting.

Other party offices were zoned to the various geopolitical zones as follows: Deputy chairman (Southsouth); National Secretary (Southwest); National Legal Adviser (Northwest); National Treasurer (Southsouth); and National Financial Secretary (Northcentral).

Others are: National Woman Leader (Northwest); National Auditor (Southwest); National Publicity Secretary (Southwest); National Organising Secretary (Southeast); and National Youth Leader (Southeast) among others.

The party will be holding another NEC meeting on May 11, to ratify amendments to its constitution.

Attendance was the lowest in the history of the party’s NEC meeting, with just about a quarter of the members in attendance.

A meeting of the Board of Trustees (BoT) that was supposed to hold shortly before the NEC meeting failed to hold.

Chairman of the BoT, Senator Walid Jibrin, who attended the meeting, said his members were not invited to the NEC meeting.

Similarly, the various caucuses also failed to meet ahead of the NEC meeting, even as a majority of the members stayed away.

The party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff said the NEC meeting was an emergency one.

According to him, the chairman of the zoning committee only informed him the previous night that his committee’s report was ready.

The meeting, which was preside over by Sheriff, also had in attendance former President of the Senate David Mark, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, a few PDP governors, members of the National Working Committee (NWC) and some members of the National Assembly.

posted by Oscar Jonathan