Ogun PDP: Destined for self-destruction?

National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Bamanga Tukur
 

The storm troubling the Ogun State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party since 2010 is far from settling. With each passing day, the intra-party crisis assumes a fresh dimension.

Lately, elders and founding fathers of the embattled Ogun PDP have come together to voice their opposition and rejection of the controversial ward, local government and state congresses conducted recently by a faction loyal to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

While other Nigerians were in their homes savouring the public holiday occasioned by the Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations, the elders of the PDP in Ogun State spent the day in a hotel in Ijebu Ode strategising on how to get the national leadership of the party to conduct fresh and all-inclusive congresses in the state.

The party elders did not hesitate to demonstrate their strong opposition to the emergence of Senator Dipo Odujinrin as the state chairman of the party in Ogun following the state congress conducted by the Obasanjo faction on August 4.

Already, the Mallam Ibrahim Bamalli-led Committee sent by the PDP National Secretariat to monitor the congress in Ogun has recommended the cancellation of its results, saying that three of the existing four factions in the state PDP did not take part in the process.

The five-man committee in its report submitted to the PDP National Secretariat also declared that the congress was neither transparent nor credible, warning that the result should not be accepted in order not to further divide the party in the state.

Rising from a caucus meeting of the harmonised Otunba Gbenga Daniel and Jubril Martins Kuye groups, under the umbrella of the Ogun PDP Progressives, the party elders armed with the reports of the congress committees urged the party leadership at the national level to annul the results of the congress held by the Obasanjo faction by ordering fresh congresses at all levels in order to accommodate all the members of the other factions allegedly disallowed by the Obasanjo faction from participating in the August 4 congress and the previous wards and local government congresses.

Not ready to stomach the alleged “selfish congresses” held by the Obasanjo faction, the elders of the party immediately after the August 4 state congress, inundated the ward, local government and state congress appeal committees with various petitions regarding the process.

One of the petitions addressed to the State Congress Appeal Committee of the Ogun PDP and obtained by our correspondent reads: “It is trite that you cannot be a judge in your own case. This group (Obasanjo faction) only went to the congress and affirmed their own listed candidates without following the rules and guidelines of the congresses.”

To drive home their arguments, the Chairman of the PDP Progressives, Senator Osholake, told our correspondent at the end of the meeting that lasted about four hours that the only way to return peace and harmony to the Ogun PDP was the conduct of congresses in which all the factions recognised by the PDP national headquarters would be allowed to freely take part.

He said the concern of the PDP Progressives was the re-building of the party with a view to putting it on a sound footing to win future elections in the state.

Osholake however stressed that the PDP Progressives and party elders were prepared to work with all the other factions of the party in Ogun provided they too were ready to cooperate in the task of re-building the party in the state.

He, however, claimed that his faction was the only legally recognised group that should conduct such congresses in Ogun State.

Similarly, one of the party leaders who attended the Ijebu Ode meeting, Chief Kolapo Ogunjobi, described the recent congress as “a charade”.

He said, “It was a sham. As far as we are concerned, we are not even aware that any congress held in Ogun State. We only read in the papers that the Obasanjo faction held a kangaroo congress. We were not involved and normally we are not interested in any charade. I’ve been in politics for quite some time and what they did during that congress was unheard of. I heard that the congress was held in an events centre. It’s unheard of. So, that proves that it was a charade.”

Another leader of the group, who doubles as the leader of the JMK faction, Salako, however advised Obasanjo to stop compounding the perennial crisis in the PDP in Ogun.

He urged Obasanjo to stop dabbling in the crisis in the Ogun PDP, adding that his status as a national hero and international figure was being diminished by his involvement in the crisis.

“If we need the party to move forward in Ogun State, Obasanjo has to stay out. He should not be an umpire. He’s our father, he’s above this local politics,” Salako said.

On the claim by the Odujinrin-led exco that the PDP National Secretary, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, through a letter had recognised the congress that produced the new exco, Salako argued that such a letter, must have been forged.

He, however, accused the Obasanjo faction of planning to forcibly take over the party secretariat currently being occupied by the Bayo Dayo-led faction.

Similarly, on Tuesday in Lagos, the Chairman of the court-recognised executive of the Ogun PDP, Chief Adebayo Dayo, and party financier, Mr. Buruji Kashamu, upbraided the former president and Oyinlola for allegedly condoning indiscipline in the embattled state chapter of the party.  

But the Publicity Secretary of the Obasanjo faction, Bidemi Osunbiyi in a reaction dismissed the claims against his group.

Osunbiyi described the position of the PDP Progressives and elders on the recent congress that produced the Odujinrin-led executive as laughable.

He said there was no group known as the PDP Progressives within the party, stressing that the majority of those who attended the Ijebu Ode meeting of the Progressives were “defectors who have yet to revalidate their membership as directed by the National Secretariat.”

He added that “Mrs. Apampa Iyabo and other loyalists of former governor Gbenga Daniel are still with the People’s Party of Nigeria and others with the Labour Party. They are defectors who feel too big to obey party rules of going back to their wards to revalidate their membership.”

The Obasanjo faction’s spokesman, however, advised the other groups of the PDP to take their defeat in good faith. He added that his group would take over the IBB Boulevard state Secretariat of the party at the appropriate time “using due process.”

“We are peace-loving people. We will take over the place (Secretariat) using due process. They can’t be serious; their request is laughable. They should learn to take defeat,” he said.

Also, Odujinrin accused Kashamu of being a card-carrying member of the ACN in Mushin, Lagos State.

He said,  “That somebody is alleged to carry a card of another political party in another state and is in our own state claiming to be a member of our own party; that shows the kind of person that man is. But it is our own assignment as the party executive to manage all shades and manner of people. We will continue to manage him and we hope that as we go on, he will come back home either here or in Lagos. Whichever one he chooses, he has to make up his mind where he wants to go.

“We, on our part, have set up a reconciliation committee and whoever thinks he is aggrieved in our party and is a genuine member of our party should go and meet the reconciliation committee of the party and be re-absorbed into the party.”

In his reaction, Kashamu denied having anything to do with the ACN in any part of the country.

He said in a statement, “If truly I am a member of the ACN, how come the Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission did not accept the list submitted by the Adebayo Dayo-led exco which I am supporting? Why did OGSIEC prefer Obasanjo’s illegal list that has now been nullified by an Ogun State High Court?”

With the failure of the two factions to settle their differences, analysts are of the view that the desired reconciliation, unity and peace in Ogun PDP may for long remain a mirage.