A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and one of the party’s gubernatorial aspirant in Ekiti State, Chief Dayo Adeyeye, wants the leadership of the party to respect the constitution of the party by adhering to the principle of zoning.
For the purpose of equity and fairness, the PDP must, according to him, zone the 2014 governorship election in the state to the South Senatorial District. Adeyeye, a former spokesman of pan-Yoruba socio -cultural organisation,Afenifere, however, was optimistic that whether his party adopts the zoning principle or not, he would emerge as the gubernatorial candidate for the 2014 governorship election in the state. Speaking in Ise-Ekiti, while hosting leaders of the PDP to an end-of-the-year party, the former Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB) noted that no part of the state should be seen as inferior to others.
Adeyeye, apparently reacting to comments by some leaders of the PDP in Ekiti that there would be no zoning as the best candidate should emerge from the gubernatorial primaries to tackle the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) government in the state, said it would amount to cheating the people of the South Senatorial District if the party jettisons the zoning principle.
The PDP chieftain, who went memory lane, stated,” Even in the old Ondo State from where Ekiti was carved out, after the late Pa Michael Ajasin spent his term and the military took over, the next governorship election was during the aborted Third Republic and all the governorship aspirants in the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC) were from the Ekiti axis.
“This was because people knew that for the sake of equity and fairness, the Ekiti people should produce the governor and it was so. Now, since the creation of Ekiti State and the advent of democratic rule, nobody from the South Senatorial District has governed the state. Does it mean there are no competent persons from the area? No. The area has six local governments while the other two districts have five LGs each. We must not create the impression that some people are inferior to the others”.
.jpg)
