The leading opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party is engulfed in a leadership crisis over the zoning of positions in the region.
PDP governors and leaders in the North have become sharply divided on how to micro-zone the offices allocated to the North based on the formula released by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi Zoning Committee.
Attempts on Thursday night to cede the national chairman slot to North-Central were rejected by Northern PDP governors and leaders in a tension-soaked meeting in Abuja.
The camps of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, opposed the micro-zoning of the national chairman to North-Central.
They insisted on the office being thrown open to all the three geo-political zones in the North, including the North-Central, the North-West and the North-East.
According to the zoning formula for offices devised by the Ugwuanyi committee, the North is expected to fill the following offices: National Chairman; Deputy National Chairman (North); Deputy National Secretary; Deputy Publicity Secretary; Deputy Financial Secretary; National Organising and Mobilization Secretary; National Legal Adviser; Youth Leader; Treasurer; Deputy Auditor; and others.
But the office of the national chairman has ignited fresh crisis in the Northern PDP caucus.
The chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP, Senator Walid Jibrin, has however cautioned stakeholders against taking sides in the ongoing controversy over zoning of party offices.
Jibrin, who spoke in Abuja on Thursday on the sidelines of the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, urged members of the BoT to remain neutral in the zoning controversy.
“I plead with stakeholders and our members across the country not to yield to the temptation to defect to any other party.
“What we are experiencing in PDP today is a child’s play compared to the implosion waiting to happen in the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“So please I urge you not to defect to the APC on account of what we are experiencing in PDP at present, because we are going to sort out our differences amicably the way we have always done in the past.”
