Lawmakers from the South-East under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have issued a strong warning to the party leadership, vowing to shun the upcoming national convention if the position of National Woman Leader is taken away from their zone.
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Rep. Ikenga-Imo Ugochinyere made the group’s stance clear in a statement released on Sunday in Abuja.
Ugochinyere said the lawmakers would publicly distance themselves from the convention—scheduled to hold on November 15 and 16 in Ibadan—if reports that the Woman Leader slot has been zoned outside the South-East turn out to be true.
According to him, the party still has time to correct what he described as a looming injustice before screening begins for aspirants.
He warned that if the PDP leadership fails to act, no South-East lawmaker would remain in the party.
> “We don’t want to see PDP suffer more setbacks, still, we will stick to our position at the Ibadan convention if, in the next few weeks, what we are hearing is confirmed,” Ugochinyere stated.
“If the position of National Woman Leader is not expressly ceded to Imo, and an Imo person allowed to emerge, we will boycott the convention.”
The Imo-born lawmaker argued that since Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu had defected to the APC, the previous arrangement allowing Enugu to produce the Woman Leader was no longer valid. He said Mbah’s nominee for the position had also joined the ruling party.
Ugochinyere added that the defection provided a chance for the PDP to “correct the injustice” against Imo State, insisting that the Woman Leader slot rightly belonged there.
He alleged that some powerful figures within the party were plotting to move the position from the South-East to the South-South, a move he described as “provocative and divisive.”
> “Confirmed information is filtering in that some people are trying to move the Woman Leader position out of the South-East to the South-South,” he revealed.
He cautioned that such a decision could alienate the entire South-East from the party and deepen PDP’s internal crisis.
> “This will compound the ongoing confusion in the PDP. If the remaining stakeholders from the South-East boycott the convention, that will bring the party into more crisis,” Ugochinyere warned.
He appealed to Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke to intervene and ensure the position remains with the South-East, particularly Imo State.
> “We don’t want to believe the information that one of the party’s leaders is plotting to cede the Woman Leader position to the South-South. It would be very insulting to the South-East if a position that is ours is taken away and handed to another zone,” he added.
(NAN)
