South-east divided over speaker, party chairmanship…As North strategises for 2015

Sharing of the spoils of ‘war’ by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is threatening the harmony and cohesion amongst the disparate geo-political zones in the country.
In the South-east, a battle of sorts is raging within the PDP in the zone and in the apex-socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze. At the root of the disagreement is a choice between chairmanship of the party and speaker of the House of Representatives.

The chairmanship of the party was originally zoned to the South-east in 2007, and was designed to last for eight years as other zoned principal government positions. It has rocked like a musical chair, with the last occupant, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, quitting in January this year in a most elegant manner.

Dr. Haliru Bello from the North-west is holding forth in acting capacity, a development that has emboldened the North to seek to keep the seat until after the 2015 general elections. The desire of the North to retain the position, it was learnt, was to pave way for a President of northern extraction in 2015 as was promised by President Goodluck Jonathan during the campaigns.

Already, a powerful lobby group had moved in to concretise the steps and was believed to have canvassed for it before Jonathan.
The president, who is on a retreat in the highlands of Obudu, Cross River State is yet to make a definite commitment to the demand.

But antagonists of this new move by the North, blamed the South-east for “being naïve at this critical juncture in the nation’s political history.”
A chairmanship aspirant in the party, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, expressed dissatisfaction with the unfolding development.
He said: “We hear that the spin doctors of this new doctrine are preaching that the PDP has to re-zone the offices so that the national chairman can come from the zone that will produce the president in 2015. We wonder why consideration for 2015 should be used to rob a whole race that played vital roles in ensuring the presidency for the PDP of a post that was justifiably zoned to them … just because Nwodo resigned.”

Continuing, he lamented that “the purveyors of this doctrine will like to deceive the Igbo and the rest of the country with such arguments that the president and national chairman cannot come from the same South of Nigeria who said so? Is this in the PDP constitution?”

Picking hole in this, a chieftain of the party, Senator Ebenezer Ikeyina, argued that in the second republic, all the five political parties, but one, had their presidential candidates and national chairman from the same area. It was only the NPN that had its presidential candidate from the North-west while the national chairman came from the South-west.
He averred further that in the aborted third republic, the late Chief MKO Abiola from the South-west was the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), one clear month before Chief Tony Anenih, another southerner was elected national chairman.

But a powerful lobby from the South-East led by a ranking senator (name withheld) dismissed the interest of the zone for the chairmanship of the party.
He said the interest of the party would be better served if it provided the speaker of the House of Representatives.
“In the last four years, we were onlookers in the affairs of government. We now want to be part of the new arrangement in government. Our interest was initially for the Senate president. But since it has been zoned to the North, of course the speaker of the House of Representatives should be ours for the next four years, at least.”

But Ohanaeze was not amused by the bickering among the political elite in the party from the zone.
The Chairman, Chief Ralph Uwaechue, was quoted as saying that the organisation would support any position that would serve the best interest of the zone. He advised those fighting over the issue to “shield their swords, and deploy diplomacy in meeting the requirements of the keen national political contest in the party.”

A group known as Human Rights Writers Organization led by Emmanuel Onwubiko, also called for caution, advising that “cold calculations for 2015 should be kept in abeyance and should not be brought in so early in the day to disorganise the party. “That year is still a very long way off, and those engaged in these cold calculations do not even know who and who will live to see the year.”

 -Sun

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Posted by admin on May 4 2011. Filed under Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP), South-East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry