2027: Olawepo-Hashim’s supporters reject zoning of PDP presidential ticket as ‘Self-defeat’

By Lateef Ibrahim

Some Lagos Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), leaders and supporters of Dr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim have warned that the zoning of the party’s presidential ticket to the South would affect its chances in 2027.
The decision of the party to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South has opened a floodgate of mixed reactions by PDP stakeholders.
A northern aspirant, Olawepo-Hashim, had vowed to challenge the move at the party’s National Convention.
Olawepo-Hashim said that zoning the party’s presidential ticket either to the North or the South was unlawful and undemocratic, adding that it would serve the party no good.
Speaking at a news conference yesterday in Lagos State, Mr Ola Azeez, a PDP chieftain and State Coordinator of the Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim (GOH) Solidarity Movement said, “the party is in the path of self-defeat again with the zoning”.
According to Azeez, suppressing the ambition of others will breed another round of misgivings in the party, capable of disrupting the unity that is gradually returning into the party.
“The zoning issue is causing problems within the party already. This zoning arrangement must be revisited.
“What we should know is that zoning is not in the PDP constitution. We must not allow it to ruin our chances again.
“Let us win presidential election first before we talk about zoning arrangement of offices and other sharing formula for elective and party positions. This (zoning) should come into play after winning the election of the President.
“We must open the ticket of the party to all aspirants so as not to cause another mass exodus from the party, just because we are not making our ticket competitive and a fair contest.
“We respect our national leaders and representatives at the national level, but that does not mean they should impose their ideas of exclusion on us,” the coordinator said.
According to him, for the 16 years that the PDP ruled the country, the South had over 14 years while the North, where most votes come from, only had two years.
“If the PDP allows the zoning of presidential ticket to the South to stand, that means we are shutting out the North and this is dangerous.
“Why shut them out? That is unfair. It (party presidential ticket) should be thrown open, let the party members, the party delegates decide who they want.
“It is very dangerous for the party to shut out 19 states of the country from participating in the presidential election,” Azeez, the PDP Vice Chairman in Ojo Local Government, added.
According to him, if the door is shut against a presidential aspirant like Olawepo-Hashim and others, the party will suffer for it, especially in the North.
Azeez described Olawepo-Hashim as a bridge between the South and North as he hailed from Kwara in the North-Central, with his mother from Oyo State, South West, adding he remained the best option for PDP for 2027.
He said: “The best presidential candidate PDP can throw up today is Olawepo-Hashim. He is young, he is intelligent, he is an expert in the mainstay of the economy of Nigeria, which is oil.
“Olawepo-Hashim is a technocrat, a specialist in petroleum engineering, petroleum economics and petroleum politics. We need such a person to come here and revive this country.”
Calling on the PDP national leadership to revisit the zoning arrangement before the party convention, Azeez said that the party should always remember always touting itself as a democratic party.
Azeez, who noted that the group was driven by passion to return the party to power, described the zoning as non-inclusive, unpopular, undemocratic, detrimental to party’s unity.
Corroborating, Mrs Toyin Owolabi, the State Woman Leader of the support group, urged PDP national leadership to double check the implication of shutting out aspirants from the presidential primary.