The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will have no say in who becomes the party’s presidential candidate ahead of the 2023 general election, its National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, has said.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja, Ayu explained that the decision on who gets the ticket lies with the party’s members across the six geopolitical zones through their votes.
The national chairman made the remarks while hosting the Publisher of Ovation Magazine, Mr. Dele Momodu, and an industrialist, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, in his office.
Commenting on Momodu’s plan to vie for the PDP ticket, Ayu said: “There will be a level-playing field for all aspirants. We don’t have any special candidate; we don’t have a preferred candidate.
“It is the party members who will decide. If at the end of the day the party members vote for you that you are the one they want, we will queue behind you.
“The party welcomes all aspirants. Our party is a great party. That is why people like you have not just joined the party but want to contribute your services to the country.”
Addressing reporters after the visit to the PDP headquarters, Momodu urged the leadership of the party to ensure a paradigm shift in selecting the party’s 2023 presidential candidate.
He said: “It is for this reason I invite our great party, the PDP, to accept that it must search for a veritable flag bearer with the requisite leadership and visionary qualities that Nigerians now earnestly yearn for.
“I am convinced that the time has come to seriously challenge and dislodge those politicians who have held our country to ransom by kidnapping, hijacking and destroying the future of our younger generation and generations yet unborn.
“I am better prepared now than at the time of my first foray into the fray in 2011, and I am fully ready and certainly capable for the onerous tasks and responsibilities ahead.”
Also speaking after a meeting with the PDP National Chairman, Ohuabunwa said the next Nigerian President must be someone with the requisite experience, managerial skills and competence.
“I have the experience. I have been trained. I may belong to the older group but my spirit, my heart is of a young person.”
“I understand how to motivate people to achieve, because the job of a President is the job of a chief executive officer (CEO) and the work of the CEO is first and foremost to set the vision where are you going and sell the vision and then appoint lieutenants…”
