An aspirant for the position of national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has declared that he cannot be pushed aside in the race for the coveted seat.
The media mogul, who stated this in an interview with pressmen in Abuja yesterday, said the sub-zoning of the position to the South-West was not sacrosanct.
It would be recalled that leaders and stakeholders of the party in the South-south and South-East geo-political zones met in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital last week Thursday where they agreed that the South-West should be allowed to produce the national chairman of the PDP ahead of the August 17 national convention.
The leaders, who said zoning the national chairmanship position to the South-West did not foreclose other geo-political zones in the southern part of the country from vying for the position, however, pleaded that the zoning arrangement be respected.
Also, there are suggestions that the PDP governors were angling for a different candidate even as Dokpesi hails from Edo State in the South-south.
Unperturbed by the forces against his ambition, Mr. Dokpesi said he had carried his campaign to 34 out of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT, and that his chances are brighter than that of any other aspirant.
“I want us to just hope and pray that the (PDP) governors, who spoke out very clearly after the Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff episode, that they’ve learnt their lessons, would allow the party to make its own decisions as they said.
“And I believe them, even when I’ve seen some departure from that. I’m not naïve to believe that I should take their word hook and sinker as it would appear. I want to hold that Nigerians are watching; there’s nobody that’s the owner of the PDP, the party belongs to everybody”.
He, however, said no matter the circumstances, he would be last person to leave the PDP.
“The consequence of not allowing internal democracy to prevail in the PDP is the fact that the party will break. The party will disappear into oblivion. If the PDP does not reform now, it will not survive the crisis”, Dokpesi insisted.
