From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi

Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom on Saturday celebrated the emergence of former Senate President Iyorchia Ayu as the National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), saying ‘Nigerians now have hope… because internal democracy must be entrenched, discipline and party rules and regulations will be observed…’

The governor, who stated this at the Makurdi Airport on his arrival from Abuja, said that with the emergence of the chairmanship candidate of the party all is now set for the party’s convention which is billed to hold on October 30.

‘The chairmanship was the most difficult aspect of getting somebody to emerge. If we are able to do that. We have also encouraged the other zones that various positions are zoned to work very hard and especially arrive at a consensus to have candidates of our party and it would just be a walkover.

‘Fulfilling all righteousness, we will still have to vote anyway, but it won’t be contentious again. And on that day, we will all go there and endorse them instead of voting for each of the persons. That is what we desire.’

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Governor Ortom noted that the party will have no choice but to conduct primaries as a party that believes in democracy.

‘But where it is contentious and some people insist and of course, the new branded PDP believes in democracy, as our name implies, the People’s Democratic Party.

‘So, where somebody feels that he is not satisfied with the consensus candidate we have done, and intends to vie for any position, he is free because, at the end of the day, we want to build confidence in Nigerians that truly the mistakes the party made in 2015 will not be made again. And I believe that we are going to have a smooth convention that has never been witnessed in this country.’

The governor congratulated the leadership of the PDP in Nigeria, the Benue PDP and the Benue people for ensuring that their own son got the chairmanship slot of the party.

‘I appreciate Benue people because, for a long time, Benue people have not had their own elevated to that level that we can say this is our own.’