The vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for the 2023 elections in Nigeria, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has denied positions that he betrayed some people to get the ticket.
Okowa, the Delta State Governor, made his position known through his Chief Press Secretary, Olisa Ifeajika, on Monday.
Speaking at a news conference in Asaba, the Delta State capital, Ifeajika said that as a loyal party man, the governor heeded the directives and decisions of the PDP in all matters concerning the presidential convention.
He recalled that the Southern Governors’ Forum at a meeting in Asaba resolved and later reiterated in subsequent meetings in Lagos and Enugu to work towards the realisation of a Southern presidency.
Ifeajika pointed out that the Southern Governors’ Forum comprised members from various political parties and that the resolution of the Forum was only a wish, which was not intended to be binding on all political parties.
According to him, when members of the forum returned to their various parties, decisions varied as each had different plans to approach the process of electing a presidential candidate.
He said: “For us in PDP, the party told the Governors that it may not go with their position because we are in opposition and in order to get it right, the party set up a committee headed by Benue Governor, Samuel Ortom, to advice it appropriately on zoning of the ticket.
“The Ortom committee, in its wisdom, recommended that zoning be jettisoned to allow all aspirants to participate in the primary to enable the best to emerge.
“The committee presented its report to the party’s National Executive Committee where it was agreed to open the presidential ticket to enable for the best hands to emerge as recommended.
“As far as we are aware, no member, including the governors or group, protested the party’s decision.
“They all acquiesced and accepted the party’s decision on zoning.
“There was no treachery anywhere because no agreement was reached.
“The party’s position prevailed and delegates at the presidential primaries voted as they wished.”
Ifeajika said long after the primaries some persons were still talking about betrayal and wondered where the G-5 Governors were when the Ortom Committee presented its report.
He said: “Why didn’t they raise their voices against the party’s decision not to zone the ticket to any part and rise against it?
“They agreed to it, participated, only to start an agitation without foundation after a candidate had emerged.
“I see the G-5 Governors agitation as a distraction and I appeal to them to sheath their sword and beat a retreat as quickly as possible to join the party’s rescue mission.
“They remain very senior members of PDP and they remain an important factor because the next election is a low hanging fruit for the PDP to pick if we close ranks.
“We believe that Nigerians would vote for the party.”
On the G-5 governors agitation for the sack of the National Chairman of the party, Senator Iyorcha Ayu, Ifeajika said: “In Rivers State where (Nyesom) Wike holds sway as Governor, the governorship candidate is from Rivers South and the Chairman of the party in the state is also from Rivers South.
“We didn’t see Wike tell the party Chairman to step aside because a governorship candidate emerged from same Senatorial District with him.
“It becomes germane if Atiku emerges president and the party chairman remains in office.
“There is no law that compels Ayu to resign because the North has produced the presidential candidate, unless he decides to step aside on his own volition.
“One would have thought that having pursued the agitation without yielding results that they will beat a retreat, but if they go ahead to endorse another candidate aside the PDP presidential candidate, appropriate steps will be taken.”
On the endorsement of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party for the 2023 polls by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Ifeajika said: “You will recall that sometime ago he tore his party card and said he wants to remain a statesman.
|What he has done is the exercise of his constitutional rights.
“He was against Buhari in 2019, but he later won and that means that many Nigerians didn’t listen to him and that may also play out this time around.”