By EMMANUEL OLONIRUHA

About 30 candidates have so far applied for the position of the Director-General of the Research Institute of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Peoples Democratic Institute (PDI), an official has said.

Mr Taofeek Arapaja, the Chairman Establishment Committee, PDI, said this when he submitted the committees report to the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) on Thursday in Abuja.

The committee was charged with the task of interviewing all the candidates that applied for the position and recommend the three best candidates for appointed by the party NWC.

Arapaja, also the PDP Deputy National Chairman (South), said that 24 out of the 30 applicants were interviewed by the committee from Sept. 13 to Sept. 15.

He said that six of the candidates could not appear for the interview due to some personal reasons.

I am happy to report that at the end of the interview exercise 10 top most candidates were shortlisted and after these were further analysis based on the following parameters.

Relevant educational qualification as advertised, minimum age of 35 years to 60 years of age as upper limit, political exigencies, membership of the party.

Four candidates were found to have met these requirements the top three candidates were therefore, recommended for the consideration of the NWC.

It is also worthy of mention that the committee arrived at its recommendation purely based on competence, merit and without any external interference, in line with the directives given to the committee, he said.

Arapaja lauded the NWC for the opportunity given to committee members to serve the party, hoping that their recommendations would be considered.

Malam Umar Damagum, the acting PDP National Chairman, promised to study the committees recommendations for approval.

Damagum promised not to interfere in the process of repositioning the institute.

I appreciate the effort that you have taken to come out with this report and the exercise you have undertaken. We will look at the report as the (NWC holistically.

Like I told you earlier when you were being inaugurated, we were not going to interfere in your work and I am glad your chairman said this was done without interference.

We will look at the report on its merit and come out with the best candidate out of the list submitted, Damagum said.

The PDI was established in 2000 by PDP to serve as a centre of excellence for training, capacity building, research and development of democracy, and leadership in good governance, to serve as a think tank for the PDP and to promote democracy in Nigeria and Africa. (NAN)