Some leaders of the Lagos state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a group of supporters of Dr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim’s presidential ambition, has condemned the party’s decision to zone the presidential ticket to the South, saying it would affect the fortunes of the party in 2027.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday in Lagos, Mr Ola Azeez, a PDP chieftain and State Coordinator of the Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim (GOH) Solidarity Movement, said “the party is in the path of self-defeat again with the zoning.”
According to Azeez, suppressing the ambition of others would breed another rounds of disenchantment and misgivings in the party, capable of disrupting the unity gradually returning into the party fold.
“The zoning issue is causing problems within the party already. This zoning arrangement must be revisited.
“What we should know is that zoning is not in the PDP constitution. We must not allow it to ruin our chances again.
“Let us win presidential election first before we talk about zoning arrangement,of political offices and other sharing formula for elective and party positions. This (zoning) should come into play after winning the election of the President.
“We must open the ticket of the party to all aspirants,so as not to cause another mass exodus from the party, just because we are not making our ticket competitive and a fair contest.
“We respect our national leaders and representatives at the national level, but that does not mean they should impose their ideas of exclusion on us,” the coordinator said.
According to him, for the 16 years that the PDP ruled the country, the South had over 14 years while the North, where most votes come from, only had two years.
“If the PDP allows the zoning of presidential ticket to the South to stand, that means we are shutting out the North and it can be dangerous.
“Why shut them out? That is unfair. It (party presidential ticket) should be thrown open, let the party members, the party delegates decide who they want.
“It is very dangerous for the party to shut out 19 states of the country from participating in the presidential election,” Azeez, the PDP Vice Chairman in Ojo Local Government, added.
According to him, if the door is shut against a presidential aspirant like Olawepo-Hashim and others, the party would suffer for it, especially in the North.
He said that if the contest was thrown open, whoever lost in the primaries would take it as politics, saying that the party would remain intact unlike when some aspirants were shut out.
Azeez added that the best candidate bridging both the South and the North was Olawepo-Hashim, having hailed from Kwara state in the North-Central with his mother from Oyo state, South West.
“Olawepo-Hashim is a technocrat, a specialist in petroleum engineering, petroleum economics and petroleum politics. We need such a person to come here and revive this country.”
He, therefore, appealed to the PDP national leadership to revisit the zoning arrangement before the party’s convention.