ZONING IS DEAD IN PDP,says National Chairman, Nwodo

The  Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), zoning arrangement is dead, so declared the new Chairman,Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo yesterday in Abuja adding that it has even been abandoned since 1999.
He told newsmen that the PDP had since abandoned the policy noting that anybody interested in elective positions under the party can freely do so.
This clarification has therefore pave the way for President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2011 presidential race if he wishes.
He however said that if members of his party want the zoning revisited, he was ready to put the necessary machinery in motion for a new zoning formula.
Nwodo’s position is coming against the backdrop of agitations for President Goodluck
Jonathan to contest next year’s presidential election under the PDP, a slot which the north said belongs to them.
"I said to BBC and I repeat to you again that zoning in PDP has been jettisoned. There is no zoning on ground right now. Absolutely there is no zoning. In 1999, there was zoning and only one Northerner insisted on his inalienable right in the Nigerian Constitution to contest against the zoning arrangement of the PDP.
"The PDP took its foot down and I wrote a letter to him and returned his cheque. That is the late Abubakar Rimi of blessed memory. In 2003, after four years of Obasanjo, candidates sprang up from across the country. They paid, they canvassed. Nobody returned their money. Nobody wrote them that there was a zoning.
"In 2007, there were more candidates from Southern Nigeria than Northern Nigeria
and I think if that election was allowed to hold without interference; maybe anybody among Peter Odili, maybe Donald Duke or Sam Egwu, anybody would have won. They all paid. Nobody returned their money. Nobody stopped them. Nobody talked about zoning. They all contested. Why zoning now? Why?" he questioned.
The party boss added: "we have jettisoned it but we can revisit it. I’m not afraid about revisiting it. If we think that we need to revisit zoning today, let us revisit zoning. But the one we did in 1999, no, no, no, no, it has been jettisoned by PDP itself.
"So those who are talking about that agreement are not following the history of the party. The party has never stopped anybody after 1999 on the altar of zoning. But if they want us to zone now, we will go through the mill. We will start from the National Working Committee. We will prepare a memo on the advantages and the disadvantages of zoning. We will take the memo to the Caucus.
"The parliament and the government will make their inputs on which way to go. We will take it to the BOT; we drink from their wealth of experience, the conscience of the party; we will modify the scale with their inputs and then we have the final debate at NEC, which takes final decision for PDP.
Dr Nwodo’s clarification now paves the way for President Goodluck Jonathan, who has refused to rule himself out of the race, to contest the 2011 Presidential election on the platform of the ruling party.