Debo Ologunagba, The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national publicity secretary, has said it has not announced its vice presidential candidate for the 2023 general election.
He said this on Wednesday on Arise Television while reacting to the rumour that Governor Nyesome Wike of Rivers State has emerged the vice presidential candidate, explaining that the process was still ongoing and that any report that they had chosen a particular candidate was premature
“It is a rumour that anyone has emerged as vice presidential candidate. We are still in the process of consultation; we follow due process. We make people understand the importance of participatory democracy where every organ of the party will be involved. For the first time we introduced in our guidelines the need to have a screening process for the vice presidential candidates and deputy governorship candidates, and this is the beginning of the process
It is done especially now that Nigeria needs the best people to steer the affairs of his country because we are now at a precipice, and we need to get our country back.”
He said the NWC will be meeting and the advisory report will be considered because we are organized, we involve every organ of the party, we consider the interest of the country, capacity, in terms of where we are, our economy, we want to get the best team. We want to ensure that every part of the process has the support of the stakeholders, particularly in the interest of our country.
The prime consideration in choosing the vice presidential candidate, according to Ologunagba, would be to look at the state of the nation, unity of the country, security of the country, the wellbeing and that they are concerned about the expectation and duties of the government to provide security and welfare for the people
“We are consistent with our policies and programmes. PDP is the only organic political party in Nigeria. We ensure every organ of the party is involved in the consultation
The presidential candidate is consistent with that culture and character of our party and has been consulting through the National Working Committee (NWC). Because we are actually a democratic party, the NWC will ensure that every organ of the party participates in the decision making process, from the Board of Trustees (BoT) to the governors, former governors and former ministers. The NWC has constituted an advisory body to choose the candidate that can run with our presidential candidate,” he said
