PDP House of Representatives members back Kola Ologbondiyan for national publicity secretary

- The House of Representatives caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party has pitched support for a former Thisday editor Kola Ologbondiyan

- The House caucus during an assessment of aspirants for various national offices within the party by the lawmakers said it was impressed by submissions by the national publicity secretary aspirant

- The PDP lawmakers said the position of the PDP national publicity secretary is a sensitive one and should be vested on a professional

Some Peoples members of the Peoples Democratic Party at the House of Representatives have thrown their weight behind Kola Ologbondiyan for the position of the party's national publicity secretary.

NAIJ.com gathered that the House caucus pitched support for the former group politics editor of Thisday Newspaper on Tuesday, December 5, an assessment of aspirants for various national offices within the party by the lawmakers.

Sources present at the assessment meeting said the caucus insisted that the position of the PDP national publicity secretary is a sensitive one and should be vested on a professional.

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Ologbondiyan who was also special adviser on media to former Senate President David Mark and Kabiru Usman are the two major aspirants for the party's spokesperson.

One of the sources said the caucus panel chaired by the deputy minority leader, Chukwuma Onyema, while grilling the aspirants said the members were impressed by Ologbondiyan's submissions.

Ologbondiyan was said to have expressed credible and operable points on how to urgently re-engineer the PDP publicity to effectively re-position the party’s image ahead of the general election.

Pleading anonymity, another source said the caucus, upon listening to the two aspirants directly advised others for the position of the national publicity secretary to reconsider their aspirations.

The source said: "The caucus invited aspirants for various positions ahead of the National Convention of our great party; we have accessed them in line with their areas of aspirations and we value the quality of discussions we had with them and our intention is to ensure that we have round pegs in round holes.

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“For instance, on the position of the National Publicity Secretary, we considered issues of professional experience and proficiency in media and publicity. Don’t forget that the holder of that office will be the face of the party and its direct image maker. You know we are going for a general election and we need a very vibrant and highly proficient publicity. We can only guarantee that if we have a thoroughbred party man, who is also a media professional to handle the position.

“That was the major reason the caucus has backed Ologbondiyan and advised other aspirants, to reconsider their aspirations in the general interest of our great party.

“Ologbondiyan impressed the caucus with his planned programmes to re-engineer our publicity and re-position the party’s image as we get set for the general election. That is what should be important to all members of the party at this time," the source noted.

The sources further added that other aspirants were as well grilled to enable the caucus have a direction ahead of the national convention.

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NAIJ.com earlier reported that the PDP said the party would not allow a former vice president, Atiku Abubakar who recently returned to the party to vote at its national convention.

The party said a section of its constitution disallows new entrants from voting at the such conventions scheduled to hold on Saturday, December 9.

The PDP however said it was making moves to amend that section of its constitution at the convention.

The party also said the former vice president would be allowed to speak even though he would not vote.

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Source: Naija.ng