Lagos — Former military president Gen. Ibrahim Babangida has demanded that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should come out and explain clearly its position on the zoning arrangement for the party's presidential ticket for the 2011 election.

This is as a big scramble for the support of the South-east in the 2011 presidential election was intensified at the weekend in the United States when the campaign ships of both President Goodluck Jonathan and Babangida berthed in the country.

South-east remains one of the beautiful brides in the presidential race following the position of the five governors of the zone not to contest for either the office of president or vice-president in 2011.

Babangida, who was in Kano to condole with one of his associates, Colonel Habibu Shuaibu, who lost his father recently, told reporters that it was ambiguous for the party to say it believed in zoning and also allows others from outside the North to contest.
Shuaibu was military administrator of Niger and Plateau States at different times during the IBB military regime.

According to Babangida, PDP as a party had laid-down rules and regulations, which ought to be adhered to and respected by all its members irrespective of their positions, explaining that zoning was one of the principles governing the affairs of the party and must be respected at all times.

"The party must explain its stand because it is ambiguous to say that every person will contest the presidency as well as accepting or believing in the concept of zoning. It must clarify its stand," he said.

"Zoning must be respected by all members of the party as it is enshrined in its constitution. The party has the right to formulate rules and regulations for its members which should be respected by all," he said, adding, "the party is superior to any other persons."

At present, he said the position of the party as it affects the 2011 presidential election had no meaning and might be given all sort of interpretation.

Meanwhile, political agitators from the North-west geo-political zone that produced the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has renewed their demand that the zone be compensated with the PDP presidential ticket in 2011 in the spirit of the party's zoning policy.

Jonathan and Babangida's campaign ships anchored at the Marriot Philadelphia Downtown on Saturday where the 16th Annual Convention of the World Igbo Congress was held.