By Paul Odenyi
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday, suspended the conduct of party congresses in four states, including Imo, Abia, Bayelsa and Edo, even as it announced that aspirants for the position of Chairman would pay N1 million as nomination fee.

According to the National Organising Secretary of the party, Chief Uche Secondus, who announced this in Abuja, Bayelsa State, where the governorship election is scheduled for February 11, was spared of the process to enable members go as a team for the elections.

Others, particularly Imo, Abia and Edo, would not conduct the congresses because the exercise had been done earlier in 2011, following the crisis resulting from selection of candidates for the last general election in the states.

However, others, including the South-West states of Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo and Oyo, were allowed to go ahead as a way of resolving the internal crisis which split the party in those states during the April general election.

In most of these states, the party is being run by caretaker committees.

Secondus, who addressed the state chairmen at a meeting in Abuja, also outlined the nomination fees for aspirants for all the posts from the national chairman to the ward executives.