The PDP Convention which has been scheduled for today, Saturday October 6th has commenced and you be sure that it will be filled with plenty of stories. As expected, all eyes would be focused on the venue of the convention in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, will today hold its presidential primary ahead of the 2019 presidential election. A total of 12 aspirants would partake in the fight for the votes of 4,000 delegates to become the candidate of the PDP at the 2019 general elections.
The aspirants who are contesting in the primaries are former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal; Governor of Gombe State, Ibrahim Dankwambo; former governor of Kano State, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso; and former governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa.
Others are the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki; former President of the Senate, Senator David Mark; former Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Relations, Tanimu Turaki; former governor of Plateau State, Senator Jonah Jang; former governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi; former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido and Datti Baba-Ahmed.
In spite of the large number of applicants, four of them are required to be the key fight contenders in what is by all accounts a distinctly challenged and a capricious race. The consideration of delegates will significantly be on Atiku, Tambuwal, Saraki and Kwankwaso, every prepared government official in their own rights.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is relied upon to screen the primary in its job as the electoral administration body in Nigeria. Heavy security details have surrounded the setting of the primary and encompassing regions in Port Harcourt since Friday. Concurring to Nnamdi Omoni, Police Public Relations Officer of the Rivers State Police Command, said in regards to 12,800 of its members would be conveyed to keep up peace in the midst of the span of the primary.
He stated, “We are deploying 80 per cent of the 16,000 policemen in the state for the convention to ensure that there will not be any security breach. Our warning to political thugs and other hoodlums is that they should stay away from the venue and even the entire state. If they want to be in the state, they should be peaceful in their conduct.”
It was accumulated that there were issues concerning the delegates’ records from Kano, Lagos and Ogun states. For instance, a camp of one of the applicants said that the name of a previous Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, was likely going to be included in the supposed reconsidered adaptation of the delegates’ rundown from Ogun State. The camp said this may be opposed, saying that Bankole had left the PDP for another party in the state.
On account of both Kano and Lagos states, it was discovered that the national administration of the party met on them in Abuja on both Thursday and Friday. Despite the fact that choices gone up against them were as yet scrappy as of the time of going to press, a source at the National Working Committee of the party said that whatever choice they take will be in light of a legitimate concern for everybody. In the interim, delegates in Port Harcourt were on Friday night examining the presumable result of the primary. In view of their exchanges at their different lodgings, the presumable winners may be among Tambuwal, Kwankwaso, Atiku and Saraki.
The result of the PDP’s presidential race today will show to political onlookers if the party has really experienced change and prepared to assume control from the ruling party, APC which has so degenerated particularly in rigging, to the degree that they rigged the results of the direct primaries which involved just President Buhari. Whoever wins the PDP primary today would run against President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the presidential race in 2019.
