Kwankwaso Decamps From PDP, Joins NNPP

At the expiration of a two-week deadline, the meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) zoning committee ended inconclusively in Abuja, yesterday.

Chairman of the committee, Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom made the announcement following a three-hour meeting.

He said: “The meeting is yet to be concluded. We have adjourned till Tuesday, next week, same time, same venue. And until we conclude the proceedings, there is not much to say.”

The committee was set up two weeks ago during the party’s 95th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, held on March 16, 2022.

The 37-member body was tasked with determining suitable zoning formula for all elective positions, particularly President, Senate President and House of Representatives Speaker.

The governor, who briefed journalists at the Benue State lodge, Asokoro, Abuja, said: “The meeting was peaceful without any tension.”

Ortom, who was flanked by Vice-Chairman Ndudi Elumelu, Chief Bode George, and others, said: “All the members understand that zoning is very key, and we are looking that at the end of it all, we will do something that everybody will accept and we will go ahead as one big family and win the 2023 elections.”

THE party, however, suffered a setback as one of its Northern stalwarts, former Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, officially tendered his letter of resignation, yesterday, and joined the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).

Addressed to the chairman of his ward in Madobi Local Council, Kwankwaso attributed his exit to “serious and irreconcilable differences.”

He wrote: “It is with a deep sense of responsibility that I write to notify you that, as a result of some serious and irreconcilable differences, I have reached the conclusion that my continued stay in PDP is untenable.

“Therefore, effective from today, Tuesday, March 29, 2022, I have withdrawn my membership from Peoples Democratic Party.”

Announcing, “I am the newest member of the NNPP,” Kwankwaso lamented his sojourn in PDP, saying: “I am sure you know that I was one of the founding members of PDP in 1998. By 1999, I was governor of Kano State.

“We had a situation in April, last year, where positions and zonal positions were being shared among states, and all leaders in the six other states were given the opportunity to relate.

“In Kano, some people thought I wasn’t that important. They had to do it their way. And I spent almost one year waiting for the PDP to talk to me.

“Even the new leadership does not want to talk to me. For that reason, I felt there were irreconcilable differences between myself and many other leaders based on ideology. I believe people should be given an opportunity, not minding their religion or region.”

THIS came as a Federal High Court in Abuja granted an ex-parte motion restraining the national leadership of the PDP and Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) from dissolving the state, local and ward executive leadership of the party in Kano.