“Postponement of PDP national convention was divine intervention” - Olabode George

The convention, earlier scheduled to hold in Port Harcourt, Rivers State yesterday (Wednesday) was postponed by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PDP, which cited the need to resolve all contentious issues bedevilling the party.

National chairmanship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Olabode George, said yesterday that the postponement of the party’s national convention was a “divine intervention” because it would have been marred with a lot of crises.

The NEC also extended the time given to the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led caretaker committee by 12 months.

Reacting to the development, George accused Chairman of the Convention Planning Committee and Rivers State Governor, Nyesome Wike and some other PDP governors, of planning to manipulate the process in favour of another candidate.

He wondered why the governors would reject the choice of the South-West zone for the chairmanship, saying there was a grand plan to impose Jimi Agbaje.

The former deputy national chairman of the PDP also faulted the total control of the convention process by Governor Wike, asking “Is it a Rivers State affair? This is a national convention of the party. I have never ever in my life seen such a thing”.

“The South-west had already endorsed somebody, you refused to take that, you were manipulating people, jumping all around. If we had done that when we were building the party, many of them would not have thought of being governors”, Mr. George added.

On his part, Agbaje blamed the crisis on shenanigans by the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).

In a statement in Lagos by his Director of Media and Publicity, Felix Oboagwina, Agbaje said, the PDP did everything to nourish democracy but the APC was doing all in its powers to stunt the democratic process.