The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party held a meeting in Abuja over the Edo State chapter of the party.
Our correspondent gathered that the meeting was in continuation of further consultations on how best to accommodate the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, and his supporters expected to join the party’s ranks before the governorship primary which has been shifted to June 23 from June 19 and 20.
It was learnt that the NWC agreed to grant the governor a waiver in line with the party’s constitution to enable him to contest the primary.
Obaseki had held a series of meetings for the most part of Wednesday night with the PDP Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus; the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum who is also the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; and his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike, among others to fine tune the agreement.
It was gathered that there were strong indications that two aspirants had agreed in principle to step down for the governor.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, confirmed the party’s decision to postpone the primary in a telephone interview with our correspondent. He said, “The NWC of the party has postponed the Edo State governorship primary election earlier scheduled for Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20, 2020, to a new date of Tuesday, June 23, 2020. This decision is predicated on exigencies of party activities.”
As to what was discussed during the NWC meeting, Ologbondiyan said, “We discussed the modality for our primary election for the Edo governorship and the decision to postpone till Tuesday, June 23, was arrived at.”