With less than two years until the 2023 presidential election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) turned the party’s 2021 elective National Convention into campaign territory on Saturday.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former President of the Senate Bukola Saraki, former Kano state governor Musa Rabiu Kwakwanso, Bauchi state governor Bala Mohammed, and Sokoto state governor Aminu Tambuwal turned the convention venue into a carnival ground, displaying banners of various sizes for the presidential position.

The supporters who invaded the convention hall were dressed in bright colors and held posters of their favored presidential candidates for the 2023 race.

Kwankwaso supporters seized the show with their trademark red caps and white branded clothing, yelling “kwankwaso! Kwankwaso!!” from one location to the next in Eagle Square.

Supporters of former Vice President and PDP Presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar were seen holding placards that read “2023 Atiku is the answer,” “I stand with Atiku,” and “2023 Support Atiku,” among other things.

Senator Bala Mohammed, the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and governor of Bauchi State, was also seen with posters and brochures for the Kauran Bauchi 2023.

His posters were also strewn throughout most of the convention’s stands in Eagle Square.

Similarly, 2023 posters and banners of the immediate past President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal are visible both within and outside Eagle Square, the venue of the PDP 2021 National Convention.

When Atiku was invited to the platform to deliver his remarks, the Eagle Square, the convention’s site, exploded in applause.

He took use of the opportunity to urge the PDP to save the country from “mismanagement, bad administration, insecurity, and divisiveness.”

He further said that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has ruined Nigeria since assuming office in 2015.

The former Vice President said that the PDP must position itself to “rescue and restore the dignity, security, and economic progress of Nigeria,” saying that the “mission to save Nigeria is a collective thing.”

This is in light of his claim that the outcome of the party’s national elective convention would determine the country’s future.

While delivering his speech, Tambuwal remarked that keeping a great party like the PDP unified is difficult because “we are a big party with people from all across the nation and with varied interests and goals.”

“Diverse as we are, it is however clear to me that we are at our best when we remember that we must remain focused and disciplined for the sake of our country and for the benefit of our fellow Nigerians that are across the world.

“In Nigeria, it is tough to remain an item, focused and disciplined when being an opposition party. The temptation and allure of power can be overwhelming. Some have fallen along the way.”

He thanked those, who found the steps to remain focused and disciplined and do the hard work that opposition requires.

“Analysts and observers agreed that there are attempts to scuttle our activities as a party and as a people. They are people that are working to present us as weak and in disarray, but I am happy to report to the naysayers that PDP today is the strongest and formidable party in Nigeria,” he said.

He berated those trying to divide and weaken the party, adding, “I am happy to report to those who want to divide and weaken us that we are winning by the grace of God.”

Welcoming new comers, the Sokoto state governor and Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum, was optimistic that more people will join the PDP.

He said: “Allow me to welcome new members of our party. They are here because they want to work for a better and most Nigeria. They are here because they have realised that the PDP is the best platform to move Nigeria forward, we say welcome and we encourage other patriots and concerned Nigerians to join us in the PDP.

“We will soon be welcoming more members to our party. Our country is going through trying time. Our people are in need of policy intervention and leaders that can provide solutions to the challenges of security, unemployment rising cost of energy, food and other essential items for living a descent life.

“We need a strong and smart Nigeria that can provide the leadership that will help sustain institution capable of promoting collaboration in the areas of security, innovation, trade, investment and defence of our democracy.

“Our young people need a secured safe and enabling country that will allow them realise their desires to be educated, employ and deploy their entrepreneurship skills. They need to take advantage of their potential to make the best of the best to fulfill their ambition.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has made nomination papers available to women seeking positions in the party’s leadership for free.

The measure, according to the party, is intended to encourage women to join the PDP and vote in the future general elections in 2023.

Senator Umaru Tsauri, the party’s National Secretary, announced this in a report to the party’s 2021 Elective Convention at Eagle Square in Abuja yesterday (Saturday).

It also disclosed that the PDP was aware of the necessity for a 35% affirmative action, adding that “most, if not all, of the PDP governors had met in their appointive posts.”

The opposition party further “encourages all eligible women to come out and contest to win election at all levels of government so that the equation becomes balanced.”

It equally revealed plans to ensure youth participation at “the National, Zonal, States, Senatorial, LGA and Wards” levels, even as it assured members that the party’s leadership is working round the clock to complete the construction of the 12 Storey PDP National Secretariat Building.

The National Secretary disclosed that work on the 7114.39sqm which was awarded on 20 April, 2010, and has reached “98%,” completion, has been stalled due to lack of funds.

Commending members, security agencies and the International community for their role in ensuring the survival of democracy in the country, Senator Tsauri called on the party to “pull together to deliver Nigeria from this dark spell that has befallen the country.”

“Nigerians are looking up to the PDP to deliver them from the his governance of the APC the same way the founders of the PDP under G34 (group of 34 political leaders said to have rescued the country from military dictatorship, to later form the PDP) rescued Nigerians from military rule.”

Election materials will not be deployed in 86 polling units out of a total of 5,720 polling units in Anambra State for the November 6 governorship election, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Prof Mahmood Yakubu, the Chairman of INEC, disclosed this during a special consultative meeting of Chairmen and Leaders of Political Parties held at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Friday.

The impacted polling units were among the 1,112 new polling units created when INEC turned some voting locations into polling units, he said, adding that the units also had no voters from the recent Continues Voters Registration CVR operation.

“The Anambra Governorship election will be the first first that voting is taking place in polling units since the recent successful conversion of voting points arising from the expansion of voter access to polling units in Nigeria. An additional 1,112 polling units were established in Anambra State in addition to the existing 4,608 locations. This brings the total number of polling units in the State to 5,720.

“Voters were encouraged to seize the opportunity of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise to transfer to the new polling units most convenient for them.

The INEC Chairman explained that perhaps owing to the the security situation in Anambra State,voters did not did not take advantage of the new polling units by transferring their card there to ease access to polling units

He also disclosed that about 894 polling units were found to have between 1-49 voters ,adding that Election materials would be deployed in those units and voting as well as results collated .

He urged the political parties to ensure that their agents monitor the release of Sensitive materials from the Central Bank in Awka,as he observed that one political party failed to nominate polling agent for the election even though it has a Governorship candidate.

President Muhammadu Buhari has stated that his term as President, which ends on May 29, 2023, is sacrosanct, and that those calling for an extension are wasting their time.

Buhari made the announcement during a meeting in Makkah with a select group of Nigerians living in Saudi Arabia, where he had just returned from a visit.

“By the Holy Qur’an, I swear that I shall serve in accordance with the constitution and leave when my term is over.”

“Tazarce” is not available (tenure extension).

I don’t want anyone to start advocating for unconstitutional extension and pushing for it.

That is unacceptable to me.”

Garba Shehu, the President’s media aide, released a statement in which he conveyed his message.

He also took the opportunity to call on citizens at home to be fair to his administration at all times, asking detractors to compare the security situations in the North East and South South in 2015 with how things are now.

He implied support for measures to extend the role of technology in the country’s elections, claiming that the introduction of the card reader and electronic register was God’s response to his prayers after he was denied victory in three previous elections.

“After the third so-called defeat, I said, ‘God Dey’. My opponents laughed at me but God answered my prayers by bringing in technology. At that point, nobody can steal their votes or buy them,” the President added.

President Buhari, who ended his visit to the Kingdom with the Friday Prayers at the Grand Mosque in Makkah said he will continue to abide by the constitution in all its ramifications and he will at all times supervise and deal with his ministers on same basis.

He gave assurances at the meeting that in the balance of “eighteen months or so of my time left, whatever I can do to improve the life of Nigerians, I will do it for the country.”

The President commended diaspora Nigerians in the Kingdom for representing the country well and projecting its good image.

“My problem is the North West where people are killing and stealing from one another. I had to be very hard on them and I will continue to be very hard until we put them in line and bring back order,” he said.

Buhari equally urged Nigerians living in the country to respect the laws, remain law-abiding and do nothing to derogate from the many years of friendly and mutually beneficial relationships between the two countries.

A leader of the community, Dr. Abdulkadir Maikudi, who spoke on behalf of the group requested the President to assist the privately-run Nigerian International School in the Kingdom by equipping it to provide science and technical education.

The Nigerian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Yahaya Lawal and the Consul-General in Jeddah, Ambassador Abdulkarim Mansur attested to the good conduct of the nearly 1.5 million Nigerians there.

According to them, “Nigerian professionals are doing well and projecting a good image of our country.”

Despite the Independent National Electoral Commission’s best efforts, Dr. Leonard Nzenwa, Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), has raised major doubts regarding voter participation in the governorship election in Anambra State (INEC).

Nzenwa said the people of Anambra are afraid to vote on November 6 because of the actions of non-state actors in the state, speaking during a Special Consultative Meeting of Political Parties convened by the election umpire.

Due to the security scenario in Anambra State, Nzenwa advised INEC to address unsubstantiated claims that INEC adhoc employees are massively rejecting deployment to polling locations and especially Anambra State.

He claimed that the high expense of operating the election around the billionaire Governorship candidates and the Commission itself was due to these vicissitudes, and that it was for these reasons that some IPAC members called for the poll to be suspended to enable time for sanity to prevail.

Given the circumstances, Nzenwa, who is also the Chairman of the African Action Congress (AAC), expressed worry about whether the Anambra election can be assessed in accordance with best worldwide practices.

“The 2021 Anambra Gubernatorial Polls has not only been adjudged as the most expensive by credible pollsters with returnee of billionaires in hard currency struggling it out. This equally was validated by the Commission few days ago as it attested that it has cost it huge financial and material investment.

“On the flip side, the journey to this election has been strewn with pallets of uncertainties, not that the Commission had not prepared enough for it nor the political parties ill-equipped to participate but that actions and inaction of Non-State Actors seem to be throwing spanners in the works as wonton killings and destruction of property have continued unabated.

“It is this unfolding happenings that led to suggestion by some of us that the Anambra Polls be postponed to allow for some level of sanity to return before the polls is conducted. But some dissented.

“Truth, is that, the people in Anambra are scared stiff and have been cowed to stay indoors for the greater part of the days in the last few months. You see this on their faces, you sense this in the air they breath, you behold fear-stricken population fighting to fend for themselves in the wave of brutal and conscienceless attack on their lives and property.

“For a proper, well-credentialed poll with compliments of acceptable electoral best practices to be held in an environment as this is most unlikely, electoral polls literature across the globe testify to this. We encouraged the Commission to put their best leg forward in this regard”.

He said what is happening in Anambra in the run-up to the election will cause very high voter apathy that may raise questions thereafter.

“With all that is taking place there, with the huge money playing its role as it is still doing , with the State playing her role as they are doing, and currently still figuring out how possible they can creatively tame the audacity of the so called ‘rascal aggressors’, but those we do fear might not play their role are the people, the people that are going to vote.

” It follows, therefore, that the money may be there, the State may have its way, but to draw the people out to vote enmasee might not be an easy task.

“The people are torn between two forces, on one hand, is a force driven by credible and genuine motivation to sanitize the Anambra polity for peaceful polls to take place, on another other hand, is a band of non-state actors who are adept in guerrilla antics – they show up and disappear, ducking and causing havoc, which ultimately may lead to collateral damage in the face of major clash” he stated.

…As PDP Elects New NWC On Basis Of Consensus

The suspended National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has stated his intention to appeal the verdict after failing to block the PDP’s national convention at the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt.

Secondus, who said he had just received notice of the Court of Appeal’s decision dismissing his plea to suspend the party’s National Convention, added that he respected the court’s decision even though he disagreed with it completely.

Secondus said in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Ike Abonyi, that “even though the substantive case is still pending at the Court of Appeal, I have instructed my lawyers to study the ruling with a view to appealing it immediately as no abuse of our dear party’s constitution should be allowed to stand.”

“The issue is not about Prince Uche Secondus but about the sanctity of our party constitution and core democratic principles of justice and rule of law not only in PDP but in our democracy. No impunity must be condoned.

“I will therefore wish to emphasis the fact that I did not take the party to court and would not have done that.

“As a foundation member of this party who has served at various levels, State Chairman, Chairman of state Chairmen, National Organizing Secretary, Deputy National Chairman, Acting National Chairman and now National Chairman, am very much abreast with the workings of the party. I have been a witness to how much harm litigations have done to our party in the past and as a result I have been a strong advocate against settling issues in courts.

“This was why I resisted and rejected entreaties of those who wanted me to go to court to halt these forces when it was obvious that they were determined to disrupt my leadership and truncate my tenure in office with the sole objective of hijacking the party for their selfish ulterior motives.

“To allow this travesty to stand is to reduce our beloved party to a level where anybody can wake up over night and remove officers against the proscribed constitutional process and the National Chairman for that matter. And purporting to use the judiciary through an experte order to legitimize same.

“As a major practitioner in our democracy, I am duty bound to protect and defend the sanctity of the provisions of our constitution of which am the custodian.

“I wish to therefore at this juncture thank and appreciate leaders and other stakeholders of our party who have called in to express their concerns on this matter and appeal for the understanding of all.

“If those who orchestrated and fostered this avoidable crisis had listened to wise counsel of party leaders and elders who advised the withdrawal of cases, this situation would have been avoidable. I wish the party well as always.”

Meanwhile, the party, which was in joyous mood when it was announced that it won the Appeal Court case, will on Saturday elected members of the new National Working Committee (NWC) on consensus.

The only positions the 3600 delegates will elect On Saturday that are not on consensus are, Deputy National Chairman (South), Auditor and Youth Leader, while others will be affirmed on consensus.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja on Friday, the Chairman of Convention National Committee and governor of Adamawa state, Ahmadu Fintiri said, “as you can see, all the subcommittees have been mobilized and they’re fully prepared to deliver by tomorrow, most of the activities have all been completed and we’re fully satisfied.

“All the positions being contesting for are fully occupied. The result of the screening committee was submitted to me yesterday and all the positions and individuals that were disqualified, was further uphold by the Appeal Committee.

“At the moment, we’re making efforts to reconcile most of our contestants so that we can streamline them to have a better Convention, which will be hitch free and deepened our chances for 2023. Most of the positions as at today, except for three will not be contested.

“At the moment we are talking to those that are contesting for the Office of the Deputy National Chairman (South) and the those that are contesting for Office of the Auditor, and those that are contesting for Office of the Youth Leader.

“I think at the moment these are just the offices that still have many people contesting for them. The rest have been streamlined and the consensus looks like okay.

“We will be expecting 3600 delegates tomorrow. This is exactIy what I told you that I’ll be updating you because we’re still packaging the list of delegates.”

Senator George Akume, Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs and a frontrunner for the All Progressives Congress’s national chair, has stated that he will follow the party’s decision on the zoning of the party’s top position.

On Thursday, when appearing on Arise Television Night News Live, Akume addressed the subject.

He stated the party had yet to publicly identify the zone that would produce the national chairman, and that his choice to run would be contingent on the position’s zoning and what he called his “permission to contest.”

Akume alluded to his qualifications and ability to successfully and meaningfully steer the APC ship ahead of the crucial 2023 General elections, citing his eight-year governorship of Benue, where he successfully managed complex government and party issues, as well as his legislative experience and current assignment in the Federal Executive branch.

He claimed that the African People’s Congress (APC) had become the continent’s single largest political party, with over 46 million members registered.

He stated that the APC was the only option, even as he stated that the party was expecting leaders and members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who were looking for a better organized and administered party.

Hon. Mai Mala Buni, the Yobe Governor and Chairman of the Interim National Convention Planning/Caretaker Committee, was praised by Akume for his focused leadership in pursuing party reconciliation.

Buni, he said, was successfully leveraging his experience in political party administration, particularly as the party’s former national secretary before becoming governor, to strengthen the party.

In response to a query about the APC’s parallel congresses, Akume noted that in places where there were parallel congresses, they were the result of alleged conflicts of interest.

He explained that there was no parallel congress in Benue State, where he is the party’s head, and that the incidence only occurred in a few states.

The APC, according to Akume, controls 22 of the 36 states in the federation, and the party has established protocols and systems for crisis management.

He used another question to reiterate why he left the PDP and joined the Action Congress, on whose platform he joined other people from different parties to form the APC.

He claimed he left the PDP, of which he was a founding leader, because it was not being run in accordance with its constitution and manifesto.