The Chairman of PDP Special National Convention Planning
Committee, Professor Jerry Gana has said that vacant offices arising from the
resignations of former members of the National Working Committee, NWC, would be
open to all qualified members of the party including the erstwhile officers
during the July 20 Special National Convention to be attended by about 4,000
delegates.
Gana said, ‘’4000 delegates are expected. The offices that are
vacant will be open to all interested members of the party and we have already
written to INEC to inform them that the NEC of our party has resolved to
reconvene the convention on July 20. The only zonal congress that has been
affected is the one for the south west which we have now scheduled for July
11.”
The Deputy Senate President and Secretary of the Special
Convention Planning Committee, Senator Ike Ekweremadu also said that there
would be no re-zoning of positions occupied by former members of the NWC who
resigned following the report of the INEC, adding that the party took the 2012
convention for granted where there was yes vote for a candidate.
Ekweremadu said, ‘’I am not aware that Nigerians decided that our
chairman will leave. It is not for Nigerians to decide for PDP. PDP will
decide whether their chairman will stay or not. It was entirely an internal
issue; let us put it in a proper perspective; what we are doing in PDP is to
demonstrate that we are a party that is committed to rule of law.
‘’Now the INEC made an observation regarding our last Convention
and the observation is straight forward. They are saying that we had a
guideline that stipulated that even when you have one candidate for a
particular position, there must be voting for the person, but unfortunately, we
took it for granted that since we had one candidate for each of these
positions, we could as well do a yes vote.
‘’Some of our colleagues went to court to challenge the decision
of the convention and electing those other people in pursuant to the voice
vote. The matter is still in court, but we said, instead of waiting for court
to decide one way or the other, why don’t we do it again and in doing that, are
you going to stay those whose elections were said to be correct to resign, it
doesn’t make sense.’’