17th April, 2022
Prince Kassim Afegbua, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the party may be dragged to court if its failed to zone its presidential ticket for the 2023 general election to the southern region of the country.
Reports indicated that the National Executive Committee, NEC of PDP will meet on Thursday to consider the report of its committee on the zoning of the 2023 presidential election.
But there are speculations that the party may have decided not to zone the ticket to any part of the country and instead, will allow all aspirants to go to the field and canvass support for their ambitions among members.
But according to Afegbua, failure of PDP to zone its presidential ticket to the southern region following the 8-year term served by a northern President and the representation of the party by a northerner in 2019, would amount to a violation of the party’s constitutional provisions which recommends equity, fairness, and justice.
Afegbua said this while appearing as a guest on a political show hosted by ARISE TV journalist Summer Sambo.
Fielding questions on the delay of the PDP’s NEC to deliver a verdict on the recommendations of the Ortom-led committee which had advised the party to “throw the ticket open”, he said the party was only postponing the evil day.
He said: “the (zoning) issue is purely at the doorstep of the constitution of the PDP. In the wisdom of those who were the framers of the PDP constitution, taking into account our plural status, ethnic multiplicities, and the imbalances of Nigeria; taking into account the quota system and the federal character principle enshrined in the country’s constitution, decided to insert that article 7 subsection 3c into the party constitution that talks about equity, fairness and justice.”
“The only natural thing to do, instead of the rigmarole of trying to postpone the evil day, or trying to be clever by half because of the greedy ambition of some aspirants, is to just say since the candidate of the party in the last election is from the north, then it’s the turn of the south.”
On whether he would go to court on this issue, Afegbua said “it’s an option because it’s a constitutional provision matter.”
“It is good for us to test the veracity of the provisions,” he continued.
He repeated his charge to rein in on the aspirants from the north to step down their ambition, similar to what it did in 2019 which according to him led to an all-northern contest at the party’s primary election in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.