•••Nigerian helpless as Terrorists Closes in on the Nation.
The Benue State Governor and Chairman, Zoning Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Samuel Ortom, has
denied media reports that the party has scrapped zoning arrangement and thrown open the party’s Presidental ticket.
Ortom said that it’s only the National Executive Council of the party that will decide on the issue of zoning.
Ortom made the clarification on Wednesday, on the Arise TV ‘Morning Show’ Prime time programme.
“I want to clear the insinuation that the zoning committee has thrown open the presidential ticket. I did inform the media yesterday (Tuesday, April 5, 2022) that the committee has adopted a unanimous position to be presented to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party. Where did I say that the committee has thrown open the presidential ticket?
“The committee will present the report to NEC. It is NEC that has the final authority on the zoning of positions.” He explained.
Ortom berated those who are peddling the rumour when they were not part of the meeting of the Committee but went as far as speaking for the and “force words into the Committee’s mouth.”
According to him, the party was misquoted adding that the Committee was being quoted on what it did not say.
He expressed that as far as the committee was concerned, there were arguments that the presidential candidate should go to the South adding that while some said it should go to the Northern part of the country.
He said there were others who were of the opinion that it should be thrown open for the best candidate who would be able to deliver good governance and make Nigerians feel like human beings again.
“As the chairman of the committee, we did not say that. So it is very wrong for anyone to insinuate that we have thrown the presidential ticket open. I am still repeating that, whatever we did, we have submitted our report to NEC. So it is wrong for the media to come out with a position despite the fact that they were not members of the committee.
“I came out to brief the media. So it is wrong completely. I did not say that. And like I said, NEC is the final authority on deciding where this position will be zoned to.” He stated.
Speaking further, Governor Ortom reinterated the fact that when the party positions were being zoned before the national convention, that the NEC directed the Committee that in zoning the positions, they should go and do it rightly without minding where the president would come from.
He stated that when the time comes for the presidential primaries, a mandate would be giving to people and NEC would take a decision.
Governor Ortom, therefore begged the media not to, “Crucify us. Don’t kill us before you get the answer because PDP has not brought up a report on it.
According to him, the party leadership is consciously working towards ensuring that the party gets it right this time.
He believed that at the end, the right thing would be done stressing however that preempting the Committee’s work and NEC decision is not correct.
He said, “I want to appeal that the NEC will soon invite us to a meeting and then we can move on from there,” the Governor stated.
Governor Ortom explained that what is most important to the PDP was what the party could do to bring the economy and security situation back to normalcy.
He added that if nothing drastic was done about the present situation in the country, a time shall come when even the Presidential Villa and other government houses would be taken over by the terrorists.
“They are already closing in on us and we seem to be helpless. Everyone must team up to fight for justice, equity and fairness,” he stated.
