By Henry Umoru
ABUJA – PROMINENT stakeholders in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP under the aegis of the national caucus were last night considering a recommendation of the party’s constitutional review committee for the inclusion of a senator and a member of the House of Representatives from each state in the National Executive Committee, NEC  of the party.

The proposal which is expected to be approved by the national caucus is expected to dramatically tilt the balance of power presently in favour of governors towards members of the National Assembly.

From right; Cross River guber candidate, Imoke , VP Namadi Sambo, President Jonathan and Imoke running mate Cobham and other PDP bigwigs at the campaign grand finale.

The meeting which is holding in the presidential villa under the chairmanship of the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje has the President and other prominent figures of the party in attendance.

The national legal adviser of the party, Chief Olusola Oke who is also chairman of the party’s Constitution Review Committee, CRC, confirmed the inclusion of the controversial amendment to the constitution in an interview with Vanguard yesterday.

The proposal if accepted would be pushed to the NEC of the party where the governors are expected to make a last minute attempt to stave off the move to cut their influence in the party.

While fighting off the move to expand the membership of the National Assembly in the NEC, the governors had at the same time also been pushing for their inclusion in the influential national caucus of the party.

Speaking with Vanguard, yesterday, after the meeting of the CRC, the PDP National Legal Adviser, Chief Olusola Oke disclosed that members of the National Assembly had wanted a situation where all PDP Senators and members, House of Representatives automatically become members of NEC, but the CRC in its wisdom settled for a member from each of the states.

It will be recalled that the last Constitution which was reviewed in 2009 gave room for only the Senate President, his Deputy, the Senate Leader, Deputy Senate Leader, Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip, two Senators from each of the geo-political zones of the country to be members of NEC.

It also allowed for the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, the Leader and Deputy Leader, the Chief Whip, Deputy Chief Whip in the House of Representatives, three members from the House of Representatives from each of the geo-political zones of the country.

According to Oke who doubles as Chairman of the Committee, “you know the National Assembly had wanted all their members to be part of NEC. But the committee after reviewing their request is of the view that we should allow them to be represented and increase the number from what it is at the moment to a larger number so we do not flood the NEC given the number of members of national assembly that are from PDP.

‘’We think that we should maintain some balance between the elected members and the un-elected members. We are looking at each state being represented by one senator and one rep member, that’s what we are looking at.”

Speaking further on what should be expected from the committee and the new constitution,  Olusola said, Well, it’s the same report we have already submitted and transmitted, we are looking at a number of reports to be introduced through our constitution into the party and so the review committee met again after concluding the report to see if there are areas if we have received feedbacks from the states from stake holders so that we can reflect such feedback.

‘’And at the meeting today (yesterday) we observed that we haven’t really received any formal objection, protest, recommendation, comments on the proposal forwarded to the states and the various stake holders. So we concluded by saying that we will put our report through the end of this week to NEC and NEC has the final say as to the materials that we will forward to the convention.

‘’So by and large it is the same idea,  the idea of reformation in terms of enlarging the composition of the NEC including the percentage of women participation, considering a direct primary elections at some levels, congresses enhancing the financial provisions. These are some of the areas that we looked at.”

On the issue of direct and indirect primary election, he said, ‘’You know the committee’s work is a mere recommendation, so we have put the recommendations across to the stake holders. Anyone that the NEC does not like will be thrown away. Anyone that the NWC does not think should go to NEC, NWC will edit it. As far as the committee is concerned, ours is just a shopping list of reforms that we think the party should carry out.

‘’We do not have a final say on anything, so we have left the issue for the appropriate organs of the party to look at, adopt, modify, delete as the case may be. So that is our position. So if there are stake holders of the party that do not like a particular provision, they are free to push it through the NEC for ratification. So that is the position.”

Also recall that the Acting National Chairman of PDP, Abubakar Kawu Baraje had last year inaugurated a 23 member PDP Constitution Review Committee saddled with the responsibility of getting for the party, a new PDP constitution that would provide for the conduct of crisis free primaries and congresses, even as he admitted then that the major problem the party was confronted with had to do with indiscipline.

Other members of the Committee are governors Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, Muazu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, former PDP National Chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade, Senator Isaiah Balat; Senator James Manager; National Vice Chairman, South East, Chief Olisa Metu; Minister of Labour, Chukwuemeka Wogu and Chief Ebenezer Babatope as members.

Also as members are Senator Stella Omu, PDP Chairman, Delta, Peter Nwoboshi; Senator Paul Wampana; Honourable Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, Mohammed Isiaka Bawa, among others.