PDP Holds Emergency Meeting, May Postpone Presidential Primaries

The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called an emergency meeting to discuss the possible postponement of its convention scheduled for today, Saturday.

It was gathered that the main agenda of the meeting is the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to extend deadline for conclusion of party primaries.

Recall that the electoral body had on Friday evening extended the deadline for parties to conduct their primaries, shifting their deadline from June 3 to June 9.

The PDP will during the meeting deliberate on if the extension will give the ruling All Progressives Congress an undue advantage at the presidential election next February.

“We have strong reasons to believe that the extension was announced by INEC today to allow the APC properly digest the outcome of PDP’s convention and pick its candidate accordingly,” a PDP official with information about the meeting’s agenda told Peoples Gazette.

He said: “We were supposed to have our convention a day apart, but this latest move could give APC a window to shift its convention by additional days just to properly strategise against whoever emerged as flag-bearer at our convention.”

The PDP had scheduled its presidential primary for May 28-29; while the APC picked May 29-30.

“Postponement will be a very difficult pill to swallow at this point,” party member Wale Odulana told The Gazette. “We arrived on Wednesday and we planned everything for this weekend.”