Ohanaeze Ndigbo has on Wednesday said that the Peoples Democratic Party committed political suicide by throwing its presidential ticket open ahead of the 2023 general elections.
George A. Obiozor, the president general of Ohanaeze, made this known while reacting to the reported decision of the Governor Ortom-led PDP committee on zoning of the presidential ticket.
Obiozor, in a release by its national publicity secretary, Alex Ogbonnia, expressed worries on why PDP discarded zoning when ‘it is the turn of the South and particularly the South East of Nigeria’.
He said, “For purposes of clarity, rotation and zoning principle was engrained into the PDP constitution in 2009.
“Article 7 (2) (c) of the PDP Constitution states: ‘In pursuance of the principle of equity, justice and fairness, the party shall adhere to the policy of rotation and zoning of party and public elective offices, and it shall be enforced by the appropriate executive committee at all levels.’”
Obiozor therefore ‘deplored the unconscionable shifting of the goalpost at the middle of the game’.
According to him, “Such unscrupulous violation of the zoning principle that has been well entrenched in the PDP constitution simply changes the rules of the game in order to deprive Ndigbo the opportunity to produce a president for Nigeria.
“It is a political blunder and betrayal given what Ndigbo have suffered in our own country, and most recently for supporting the PDP.
“History has never been kind to betrayers and the treacherous. The machinations and conspiracies to deny Ndigbo their due place in Nigeria are an ingratitude that daily cries to God.”
He said Ohanaeze ‘stands on the position of the Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum, led by Chief E K Clark, that any party that does not zone its presidential ticket to the South should not expect the support of the Middle Belt and the entire South’.
Obiozor added that it was ‘curious that the PDP should commit political hara-kiri at a time it is struggling for a fresh air’.
This article was originally published on Nigeria News