BY AFOLABI IGE
Let me start by congratulating the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan, the father of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for his unusual swift reactions at exterminating the PDP cancer  before it is too late.

The President has demonstrated large-hearted leadership by pushing aside all the entrapments of personal ego and the shenanigans of ego massagers to wake up to the reality of our party. Though seemingly late it may appear but its “better late than never”.

The PDP volcano that finally swept off the Bamanga oligarchy is a great pointer to the awesome strength of the PDP to always save itself from impending doom no matter how looming.
I also want to extend my congratulations to the members of NEC, NWC and the G72 for putting behind us that ugly scepter of our party history.The Chairman really needs the honest advice and unalloyed support of all stakeholders to make a success in these assignments and hence this piece.

The starting point is the resolution without further delay of the southwest zonal Exco debacle since the zone coordinates and supervises activities in the states. Considering time, the astute option left to the new Chairman on this is to walk the middle course by putting in place a result oriented caretaker team with target and marching orders. The leadership of that team should not be negatively controversial and must be a tested go-getter as human manager and politician.

Now coming to managing the Ekiti State case and looking at the very short time available to the party before the governorship election proper, our greatest challenge and priority now is the selection of the party flag bearer for this year’s election. It is believed that whosoever is successfully selected (including through a primary election) will galvanize the party machinery and human resources toward success at the poll.

However, arriving at that destination is still a very tall order particularly in the face of current realities.Part of these current realities is that political office aspirants are the greatest mobilization agents for all political parties especially when such a party is not in government.

Their numbers often times signposts the virility of the party and the confidence of people in its goodwill. However the temptation is always there for the party not to check the growing numbers of its aspirants particularly for seeing them as the milking cows of the party even to the point of selling forms to even those that the constitution of the party forbids.

This will be an invitation to a chaos that we cannot afford now in the after matter of the primaries.
The national and zonal leadership of the party should provide transparent leadership, guardianship, monitoring and supervision of the whole process leading to the emergence of the party’s candidate. Neither the Ondo nor the Anambra processes in the recent past was good enough for success at the poll.

The party should therefore advertise its guidelines, setting out the rules in accordance with the constitution of the party and be transparent and fair minded in managing whatever fallouts arises from the process.
The next Ekiti PDP gubernatorial candidate should come from the south senatorial district since Fayose took the first PDP shot from the central in 2003 – 2007 and then Chief Segun Oni from the North in 2007 – 2011.

By coincidence these two senatorial districts have been producing governors from the other parties since the beginning of this democratic dispensation in 1999 till date. Only the south senatorial district is yet to have a shot at the governorship seat. If the PDP was mindful to rotate the governorship ticket to the North senatorial district after the Central in 2007, it is unexpected that the party will now turn blind eye not to rotate the ticket to the south particularly in the spirit and letters of our party’s constitution.

Consequently some categories of aspirants stands excluded legally by the party’s constitution from the governorship race and should be so advised by the party rather than turning a blind eye and allow the brewing of cataclysmal problem for the party towards the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti state.

*Afolabi Ige is from the Central Senatorial District of Ekiti State and a stakeholder in Ekiti State PDP.