The South-West leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party have said they
will not allow the Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko and his
Ekiti State counterpart, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, to impose the next national
chairman of the party on them.
Rather, the leaders said they would meet in Ibadan before the party’s
national convention slated for August 17 at Port Harcourt, Rivers
State, to pick the candidate of their choice for the position.
The South-West Zonal Chairman of the party, Chief Makanjuola
Ogundipe, stated this in an interview with one of our correspondents on
Tuesday.
Ogundipe, who said he was speaking on behalf of officers of the party
in the zone, described the meeting hosted by Mimiko and Fayose in Akure
on Monday as a “nullity and non-inclusive.”
Makanjuola said, “We won’t allow Mimiko and Fayose to impose any
national chairman on members of the party from the zone and the country
in general.
“The Akure meeting is a nullity because they didn’t even allow the genuine delegates to have access to the venue of the meeting.
“A meeting that was dominated by non-delegates to the national
convention, statutory delegates were barred and so on, cannot be said to
be in the interest of the party in our zone.
“It is sad that even when a court of competent jurisdiction gave a
valid judgement that our executive should be in office till 2018, the
governors are disregarding it.
“We won’t go anywhere if we continue to choose the judgement to obey
and the one to disregard. We are therefore meeting at Ibadan this week
to take a constitutional decision on the issue.”
At the Akure meeting, the factional leaders had zoned the office of
the national chairman to Ogun and Lagos states, Ekiti and Ondo states
were allocated the office of the national treasurer while Oyo and Osun
states were asked to fill the position of the deputy national publicity
secretary.
The Punch reports that it is the Makanjuola-led zonal executive that is recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The executive was however said to have been excluded the faction from the Akure meeting.
It was also gathered that the members of the Ogun State executive
committee of the party led by Mr. Adebayo Dayo, were prevented from
gaining access to the venue of the meeting.
Ogundipe said that he would call a meeting of the leaders of the
party from the zone to decide when they would meet to take a decision on
the issue.
The South-West leadership of the party also met in Ibadan on Tuesday
and declared that the position of the chairman of the party that was
zoned to the zone by the National Working Committee of the party
remained open for all interested candidates to contest.
The decision, which was taken on Tuesday in Ibadan after an emergency
zonal meeting of the party at its secretariat in Bodija, came less than
24 hours after the South-West elders and governors of the PDP met in
Akure, Ondo State, and zoned the National Chairmanship position to Lagos
and Ogun state.
A communiqué issued at the end of the meeting in Ibadan said the
South-West wing of the party opposed the position taken in the Akure
meeting because it was against the PDP’s constitution on who had the
power to convene any zonal meeting.
The Ibadan meeting was attended by Ogundipe, the zonal secretary of
the party, Pegba Otemolu, the auditor, Adekola Rasaq and other officers.
At the meeting, Ogundipe maintained that the office of the National
Chairman of the party remained open to all interested members in the six
states in the zone.
He said, “At the meeting in Port Harcourt last week, the position of
the National Chairman, National Treasurer and the Deputy National
Publicity Secretary was zoned to the South-West. It is only logical for
us to come back home and decide how we are going to share the positions
Meanwhile, a PDP national chairmanship aspirant, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, has
said that he will resolve whatever crisis his ambition can create
between him and his political godfather, Chief Olabode George.
Agbaje, a former governorship candidate of the party in Lagos State,
stated this when he visited the makeshift national headquarters of the
party in Abuja on Tuesday to pick his nomination and expression of
interest forms.
Asked how comfortable he was to contest against his political
godfather, he said, “just leave that to us, we will resolve it at home.”
But he said he was sure of his chances, adding that he would not have picked the forms if he did not believe he would win.
“I would not have come here to collect the form if I do not believe I
am going to win this election come August 17,” he said with confident.
On zoning, Agbaje said it was difficult to get a consensus candidate
“under circumstances where everybody felt that he was qualified, adding
that the beauty of democracy remained that people should not be afraid
to contest.
Agbaje denied being the candidate of the governors for the position
of the national chairman, saying he has yet to meet the 13 governors to
inform them about his aspiration.
Source- Punch
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