 Uche Seconders loses as appeal court or case PDP's national convention and candidates of the same religion won't fly the APC presidential flag says Deputy President of the Senate of the U.N. This is Plus Politics. The National Chairman of the People's Democratic Party PDP Uche Seconders suspended has lost his bid to stop the party's planned national convention. PDP's national convention is now scheduled to hold on Saturday, that's the 30th of October. Reading the judgement, Justice Gibral Kalaouli describes the suit before it as an afterthought and an abuse of the court process. The court blamed him for not acting when his ward and local government suspended him until now. Joining us to discuss this is Duran Odeyemi, he is the Deputy Publicity Secretary of the People's Democratic Party. Thank you very much for joining us, Mr Odeyemi. Thank you very much for having me and happy to be with you. Here we are again talking about the PDP and the planned national convention and of course the embattled national chairman of your party, Prince Uche Seconders. From the court ruling and the outcome of this judgement, what does that say about the chairmanship of Prince Uche Seconders going forward? We greatly believed by that judgement because we were very apprehensive and many of us would not know what it would be like to be the outcome of the judgement. But when eventually it was pronounced, we were extremely happy and we had a meeting this evening. Congratulations to ourselves that the convention will go ahead tomorrow. Well, Prince Uche Seconders still having many issues in court against the PDP and we are only waiting and we see each to the end. Whereas the party, we are moving on. When you say as a party you are moving on it means that you are going to conduct your national convention which means that you are going to have a new working committee which also means that you might or might not retain Prince Uche Seconders until his tenure expires which should be expiring in December. I am part of the national officers that is directly involved about the terminal dates of our administration. But many of us believe that there is no sacrifice that is too much for us to make for the party. If the national executive council of the party decides on the new dates that this administration, this new working committee should commence, we have no any objection to it. It is just a matter of days because we were supposed to win this administration by December 9th. So even in the wisdom of the national executive council, it is decided that our term ends on the 31st, on the 13th of October and we have no question about it. We are happy to go. So let's talk about what this court judgment means. I am going to start with someone who is from the state where Prince Uche Seconders is from. He is a member of the House of Representatives, Kingsley Chinda. He is the leader of the PDP caucus in the House of Representatives. I would like to quote him directly. He has said that neither Seconders nor the PDP has won this case. He is saying that the victory was for all Nigerians. How does this benefit Nigerians? We are here discussing PDP. Nigerians are looking forward to the new working committee of the party. There has not been any other political party in the user than PDP. And that is why the credible opposition to APC, that we take over leadership from APC in 2020, matter concerns over Nigeria, that is why you are bringing me on. That is why we are in the news. So we are congratulating Nigerians because we now have a political party that we enjoy a little peace and with the prayer towards providing a credible candidate, a presidential candidate in 2023. So that is exactly what it means by congratulating Nigeria. And I join in congratulating Nigerians that by Sunday morning, the names of the new executive committee of the party will roll out and they will give PDP an upload that we know how to manage whatever is passive to be our internal crisis. I want to take you back to a conversation we had months ago on the same issue with Prince Uche Sarkandis, who is claiming that there has been some level of high-handedness and then there are people who are trying to destroy the party, hence this whole embryo which has led to a cult ruling and now that you are about to have your convention. Who is to say that this puts a pin on all of the infighting that has been happening within the party? And who is to say that at the end of the day when the new working committee emerges that, as in your words, the party is going to be successful in enthroning good leaders or the leaders that Nigerians want? Who's to say? At no time do we stop talking among ourselves. And the essence of a good political party is to be able to manage its crisis. Still as much as we believe we still have matters in court which Prince Uche Sarkandis has against the party. The new administration, the new National Working Committee, we make it a point of duty that we still need him as one of the leaders of the party, not only him, whoever is aggrieved with whatever has happened within the party. We will continue to talk among ourselves and we continue to explore the internal mechanism of resolving issues. So the new administration, the new end of the U.C. will not stop at talking to Prince Uche Sarkandis and all members who are aggrieved. So it's part of the duty that they are going to inherit. Let's talk about the inner workings of the zoning process if that's even going to be the order of the day for the PDP this time around in preparation for 2023. I remember when we talked about this issue of zoning at the time, Prince Uche Sarkandis said that all are welcome. All are allowed to throw their hats into the ring. But is there going to be a zoning process? Will the PDP be honoring zoning issues in terms of who the national chairman will be and who the party flag bearer will be at the end of the day in terms of the presidency? The issue of who is going to be the chairman is already concluded because at this night we are only going to the convention tomorrow to ratify the election of the little Yasha Ayu as the national chairman. And concerning the presidential issue, by the time the zoning was being done, it was expressly stated that all other zones in the country will be allowed to present a candidate or whoever is interested in the presidential candidate should come out. When we get to the bridge, we know how to cross it. Right now we are concerned about having a very good sense political party. After that, we then look at the issue of the presidential where they come from, will be determined by the party and they will be given a very good opportunity to access our candidate and eventually present a candidate to them. Isn't there a laid-down rule of sorts where if the party chairmanship is zoned, for example, to the south-south, and then of course the presidential candidate cannot come from that same zone? I mean, now you're telling me that every other region can present a person to run for presidency. Does that not in any way impede the idea of zoning within the PDP? Correct me if I'm wrong. In PDP, and let me say in politics generally, 24 hours is a long time, the more you look at the generalist, the less you see when it comes to politics, that we are choosing our chairmanship from the north is never an indication that we have foreclosed the issue or we have a search that the candidate cannot come from the north. It can come from the north, it can come from the south, it can come from anywhere. What I'm telling you now is to wait until we get to that stage, you will see how we are going to progress. And how do you intend to do this with that? Again, your party does have rules and regulations that are guiding it. Are you going to not do those things within the confines of those rules and regulations? Again, we see a lot of people who seemingly are interested in running for the presidency. How many candidates have already indicated interest so far? This is me prying. I wouldn't know, because as I'm talking to you right now, I don't know anybody that has indicated interest. But I want to draw a conclusion from the last experience we had in Portugal. Almost 12 incidents came out that they wanted to be present to be a flag bearer. At the end of the day, Adiku Abu Bakar emerged as a candidate. And if you remember BPDP, even Senators Bukalasa that see who participated in that election, so long as they are to be the campaign manager for Atiku, that is the piece we are doing at PDP. So whatever is going to happen, let all these athletes and children come out. That PDP that we saw has obviously met a more force in so many ways. That is not the PDP that we have today. So I'm trying to compare today's PDP with yesterday's PDP. It's not necessarily fair, is it? PDP is the same. The mode of operation is the same. The people who are there are the same. The system and the constitutional remains the same. All that you need to do is wait until that time when we want to choose our president. Then you will see a new dimension of PDP contrary to your opinion that things are changing PDP. Nothing that changes our politics and will continue to change. And finally, on the issues or the other issues that are pending, how does the PDP intend to deal with those cases? Of course, so that it doesn't raise its ugly head while you are preparing to fight the opposition. Good enough, the new ledger advisor that is coming on board is the senior advocate of Nigeria. And that is not to underrate or to undermine people who are not senior advocate. What I'm saying in agent is we have a good ledger team that will be able to undo whatever is the ledger matter within PDP. And apart from that, just as I said, we continue to dialogue among ourselves and we believe all the people that are benefited in this party will listen to the words of people and allow peace to raise. Talking about peace, I did promise I was going to end it there, but let's look at states and local governments where they're still teething problems in terms of who's leading the party, who's not. And I'm going to use Cross River State as an example. We saw the governor move to the APC and right now, if you ask me, the PDP in Cross River is struggling. We do have the former deputy governor leading the Ketecha committee for that party up until now. What are the plans of the PDP to build a strong legacy within that state to be able to fight the APC if there be any fight left in them come 2023? Which state do you mention now? Cross River. Cross River. As far as we are concerned as a party, we virtually all the state matters to us. And you will do with me that the expiration of our term ends in two days. It is part of the new assignment or the assignment of the incoming National Working Committee that Nigerian as a component body belongs to PDP and we just must do everything within the compliance of the law to ensure that our candidates and our people remain and keep the loyalty to the party. So whether Cross River or River or wherever, we see Nigerian as AO as an institution or where PDP must contest election? I don't think you really answered my question. Yes, we know that PDP will contest elections, but do you stand a chance because the party structures were taken over by the APC. They took almost half of, if not 80% of the party structure. They all moved to the APC. Your party secretariat at the time was taken over again by the APC. We saw the former governor, Donald Duke, coming to somewhat to the rescue of the party. The former governor, Liali Moki, was almost nowhere in sight. And it seems more like a scramble. So again, I ask you, is there hope for the PDP in Cross River State? You have two days to go, but then you do also have in hindsight, what would you be telling those who are succeeding you to do to deal with that issue? Can the PDP build itself back to be able to stand against the APC? Nobody is bigger than the party. And that is why our mutual remains power belongs to the PDP. The absence or the exit of the present or present crop of legal that you are mentioning gives an opportunity to order other party members to emerge as leaders. And they only needed that opportunity, which they are sitting right now. And they will be adequately represented at the conversion tomorrow. And apart from that, they have started reducing the party in such a way that PDP will remain a force to be recon with in Cross River. Okay. Dural Dayimi is the National Deputy Publicity Secretary of the People's Democratic Party. We want to thank you for speaking with us. We appreciate it. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm happy to be with you. All right. Thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a quick break. And when we come back, the Christian Association of Nigeria has assured, I've been assured of the balance in the religious selection for 2023 APC ticket. We'll take a short break and then we come back when we're talking about it.