The Peoples Democratic Party in the South-East is reaching out to the leadership of the party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to ensure that the PDP standard-bearer picks his running mate from the zone, The Nigeria Standard has learnt.
It was gathered that the leadership of the party in the South-East argued that having failed to cede the presidential ticket to the zone, which had consistently supported the PDP since 1999, the only thing left for the party was to cede the vice-presidential slot to it.
Atiku had in May emerged the winner of the PDP presidential primary after defeating other aspirants including a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Pius Anyim and an ex-President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Sam Ohuabunwa.
After the PDP primary, the apex socio-cultural organisation for the Igbo, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, criticised the party for betraying the zone.
A few days to the primary, Atiku’s running mate in 2019, Mr Peter Obi, dumped the party and joined the Labour Party on whose platform he would contest the 2023 presidential election.
There has been growing support for Obi since he joined the LP. Analysts have warned that Obi’s defection to the LP might affect the chances of the PDP in the South-East, where its presidential candidate got 1.6 million votes in 2019 against over 403,000 votes garnered by President Muhammadu Buhari who contested on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
The Publicity Secretary of the Anambra State PDP, Nnamdi Nwagwu, in an interview with Newsmen, confirmed that the South-East had demanded the vice-presidential slot like the South-South.
