Iyorchia Ayu emerges consensus PDP chairman
The North Caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has finally endorsed a former Senate President, Dr Iyorchia Ayu as PDP National Chairman.
This comes after the PDP leaders held a consensus meeting in Bauchi on Wednesday ahead of the party’s national convention.
It suffered a setback as some stakeholders in the party were reported to have shunned the meeting.
Chairman of the Convention Organising Committee and Adamawa State Governor, Umaru Fintiri, then adjourned the meeting to Thursday where the leaders chose Senator Iyorchia.
The PDP leaders from the northern region had met to trim down the number of candidates contesting for the office of the national chairman of the PDP and other positions in the forthcoming convention.
Last Thursday, they agreed to set up a 20-man committee that would streamline the number of contestants from each of the zones in the region.
Party leaders in the north-central region had held a similar meeting on Tuesday where Professor Iyorchia Ayu emerged as a consensus candidate for the chairmanship position in the convention to be held later in October.
On September 9, the PDP leadership set up a national zoning committee to zone national offices to be contested by all PDP members.
But the mandate of the committee did not include zoning of the offices of the president, vice president, as well as other executive and legislative offices in the country.
The North Caucus is made up of party leaders from the North Central, Northeast and the Northwest geopolitical zones.
The new chairman-in-waiting will be presented for approval at the next National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in the days ahead.