- The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called an emergency meeting
- The meeting is mainly for members of the party's National Executive Committee (NEC)
- The meeting is said to revolve around demands by some members of the newly formed coalition
The NEC and Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP would hold emergency meetings on Monday, July 23, to discuss demands by some members of the newly formed Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP).
Daily Trust reports that that meeting would discuss the choice of a strong presidential candidate for the coalition in 2019, and the demand by some members of the Reformed-All Progressives Congress (R-APC).
The parties had agreed to field a single presidential candidate that would unseat President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. The PDP alone had over 15 presidential aspirants while many of the political parties that signed the MoU also had their presidential hopefuls.
The demands by R-APC included the need for PDP change its name to improve its image as well as giving automatic tickets to its members currently occupying elective positions in the national and state assemblies.
A member of the BoT of the PDP, who spoke on condition of anonymity with Punch newspaper, on , said that the meeting would also discuss how to receive those expected to defect to the party within the week.
His words: “The NEC meeting and others before it are important because of the issues raised by the coalition groups.
“For example, some are still insisting that we should change our name and logo, while others want to know how they will benefit in terms of fielding of candidates for the elections.
“We were manipulated in the Ekiti state governorship election because the coalition did not work. Now, the Osun state governorship election is approaching. We need to finalise that before all the political parties send the names of their candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“We need to discuss which party will step down for the other and so on. We cannot go to that battle as a scattered group. If we do, we could be whipped again.”
The national publicity secretary of the party, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, confirmed the meeting and its agenda.
He, however, said that the meeting would “take action on all pending issues,” adding that the party had not said it was changing its name.
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Meanwhile, the chairman of the PDP in Kano state, Senator Mas’ud El-Jibrial Doguwa, has said the party is expecting Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to join it soon.
Doguwa told a national newspaper on Thursday, July 19, that consultations were still on to convince the former governor to dump the APC and return to his former party ahead of the conduct of 2019 general elections.
He explained that although the consultations were at the national level, the Kano state wing of the party had made all the necessary arrangements to receive Senator Kwankwaso.
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Source: Naija.ng