By IKENNA OSUOHA

The South-East Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members in the House of Representatives have threatened to boycott the forthcoming national convention of the party if the position of ‘Woman Leader’ is removed from the zone.

Spokesperson of the zone in the House of Representatives, Rep. Ikenga-Imo Ugochinyere, made the position of his colleagues known in a statement on Sunday in Abuja.

Ugochinyere said that they will issue a disclaimer against the convention slated to hold Nov.15 and Nov.16 in Ibadan in two weeks if they confirmed that the party had zoned woman leader outside the zone.

He said that there is still time to remedy the situation before screening of aspirants if the insinuation making the rounds has any iota of truth.

Ugochinyere said that no elected lawmaker from South-East will remain in PDP if the impending insult is allowed to happen.

“We don’t want to see PDP suffer more setbacks, still, we will stick to our position at the Ibadan convention if, in the next few weeks what we are hearing is confirmed.

“If the position of National woman leader is not ceded expressly to Imo and an Imo person is allowed to emerge, we will boycott the convention,” he said.

According to him, now that Gov. Mbah has left for APC, that earlier arrangement of Enugu producing a woman leader no longer stands because Mbah’s woman leader nominee is also in APC.

The lawmaker explained that Gov. Mbah’s defection has provided opportunity for the party to address the injustice of depriving Imo the woman leader position.

He alleged that an arrow head within the party is the brain behind the plot to deprive Imo its rightful woman leader slot.

“However, confirmed information is filtering in that some people is trying to move that woman leader position out of the South-East to the South-South.”

He warned that such a plot would provoke the entire South-East and alienate them from the Ibadan national convention and the PDP generally.

“This will compound the ongoing confusion in the PDP. If the remaining stakeholders from the South-East boycott the convention, that will bring the party into more crisis.”

Ugochinyere appealed to Gov. Ademola Adeleke of Osun to use his position as one of the leaders of PDP in Southern Nigeria to ensure that the position is given to the South-East and Imo.

“We don’t want to believe the information that one of the party’s leaders is plotting to cede the woman leader position to the South-South.

“It would be very insulting to the South-East if a position that is there is taking away and given to the South-South.” (NAN)