PNPF has been searching for a piece that summarizes its position on the issue of zoning as it pertains to Plateau State. So below is an excerpt that would hopefully spark an intellectual discussion on the benefits/or not of zoning to Plateau politics.

The wind of the seemingly popular clamour for zoning the gubernatorial seat of Plateau demonstrates the gullibility of sections of Nigerian and how fleeting, ephemeral and temporal the political maturity could subsists, when the wind changes.

PNPF has been searching for a piece that summarizes its position on the issue of zoning as it pertains to Plateau State. So below is an excerpt that would hopefully spark an intellectual discussion on the benefits/or not of zoning to Plateau politics.

The wind of the seemingly popular clamour for zoning the gubernatorial seat of Plateau demonstrates the gullibility of sections of Nigerian and how fleeting, ephemeral and temporal the political maturity could subsists, when the wind changes.

Our stance remains that if there was ever any zoning arrangement, then such an arrangement must have been abandoned in previous gubernatorial primaries. To buttress this point, many aspirants from the North, Central and Southern Zones, who insisted on contesting the primaries of respective parties, were allowed to do so since 1999 without hindrance. If at all the PDP or state stakeholders had insisted on this purported zoning arrangement in 1999 – then it means all the Northern, Central and Southern politicians, who collected the party’s Expression of Intention forms, would have had their money returned to them and would not have contest the elections in 1999/2003/2007 and 2015. PNPF recalls that virtually all contestants in 2011 were from other zones not just from Plateau North. These individuals contested the primaries gallantly and lost to the incumbent Governor and winner of the then primaries.

As such, we in PNPF really want to know the driving force behind this new ideology that says a zoning arrangement exists. Could it be that the zoning in PDP and Plateau was jettisoned in the past elections, by same people now advocating for zoning under the usual “it is our time to govern” syndrome?

From our point of view, there is no zoning arrangement on ground right now. Absolutely, there is no zoning. Nobody warned those who contested in the past that there was an agreed zoning arrangement. And like I pointed out, in 2007/2011, there were more candidates from Southern Plateau than Northern/Central Plateau. So peradventure the election had favoured someone like Pauline Tallen, Jimmy Cheto, John Alkali, Fidelis Tapgun and Victor Lar (under the ANPP) would they have declined the victory in the name of an existing zoning arrangement? Absolutely not! They would have savoured in the victory, thanking God and their supporters for backing them.

These people whom I listed, all paid for the Expression of Intentions form. No one returned their money in the name of them being unqualified because of an existing zoning arrangement. Nobody stopped them. Nobody talked about zoning then. So why is zoning becoming relevant now? Why?

It is our position that if it ever existed, then it must have been jettisoned. However, this is not to say that it cannot be revisited, and PNPF is not afraid about revisiting it. If we think that we need to revisit zoning today, let us revisit zoning. But the one in existence holds no water at all. Those talking about zoning have not been following the history of the state politics. Our argument is that since the party did not stop anybody after the 1998 convention, why will the issue of zoning stop candidate(s) from the Northern/Central part of the State now.

Right now, nobody can allude to the fact that there is any zoning arrangement. If we want to create an agreed zoning process then we have to go through a proper documentation process, because the earlier arrangement on zoning is not working.

PNPF is in support of transparent gubernatorial primaries and elections, which would usher in the best candidate for the party (PDP) and state in-respective of where he/she hails either from the North, Central or Southern Zone of the State.

Signed: PNPF Media officer

Jummai Madaki

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PNPF Press Release: There was never such a thing as Zoning in Plateau State