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PDP Primaries: Only democratically elected delegates will vote in the primaries- PDP

…primaries rescheduled for Sunday

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Chetanne Chinelo, Enugu

As the Peoples Democratic Party gets set to commence her primary elections and following the delay of President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the amended Section 84(8) of the 2022 Electoral Act, the National Organizing Secretary of the PDP, Umar Bature, in a statement released in the early hours of today on the PDP’s verified Twitter account, has said that only democratically elected delegates will vote in the primaries.

He stated that this became imperative following the provisions of Section 84(8) of the 2022 Electoral Act.

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“By virtue of Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act, 2022, delegates to vote at the Indirect Primaries and National Convention of political parties to elect candidates for elections shall be those democratically elected for that purpose only.

“Consequently those qualified and eligible to vote as delegates in the forthcoming Primaries and National Convention of our great Party, the PDP are the three (3) AD-HOC Delegates per ward, elected at the Ward Congresses and one (1) National Delegate per Local Government, elected at the Local Government Area Congresses.

“Furthermore, the NWC wishes to inform our Party members that the State Houses of Assembly Primaries to elect our State House of Assembly candidates, earlier scheduled for Saturday, May 21, 2022 will now hold on Sunday, May 22, 2022 from 8:00am to 12 noon; while the House of Representatives Primaries to elect our House of Representatives candidates will also hold on Sunday, May 22, 2022 from 2:00 pm.

“All aspirants, critical stakeholders, leaders and teeming members of our Party should please take note”.

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Recall that both chambers of the National Assembly had hurriedly seen to the amendment of Section 84(8) of the Act which did not hitherto allow statutory delegates to participate in political parties’ congresses and conventions.

The statutory delegates include president, governors, National and State Assembly members, local government chairmen and councillors.

Others include the Vice President of the country, Deputy Governors of states and executives of political parties at the state and federal levels as well as chairmen of parties at the local government level.

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The current version, which was assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari in February this year, prevents statutory delegates from taking part in party primaries.

However, despite the accelerated hearing and passage of the bill by both chambers of the National Assembly, in the hope that President Buhari would assent to it before the commencement of the primary election for both the ruling APC and the opposition PDP, the President is yet to, leaving both parties with no other option than to use democratically elected delegates alone.

It is not yet clear what this entails for some states, especially those states that couldn’t elect the 3-man delegates during the PDP ward congresses and had hoped to make use of the statutory delegates in the primaries.

An analyst who did not want his name in print was of the opinion that the President’s refusal to assent to the amended Act was a means of getting back at the legislators for refusing to drop the part of the bill that barred political appointees from voting or being voted for in the congress of any political party.

At the moment, it is uncertain whether the there would be attempts to override the President’s veto.