Assistant Editor (South West), MUYIWA OLALEYE, examines efforts at instituting peace in the various chapters of the PDP in the South West geo-political zone.
Smarting from a crushing defeat by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March/April general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been putting up efforts to regain its bearing in the nation’s politics. The South West zone of the party is not left out of this engagement. Given that the party had recorded poor outing in the South West during the polls, the leadership has been reaching out to its estranged members in the zone for reconciliation. This, incidentally, is hardly expected. Three months after the 2015 general elections, PDP in the South West is still torn apart.
In the last 10 years, the PDP in the region has been in crisis. The states where the impasse appear more pronounced are Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Lagos. It was in this ugly situation that the party went into the general elections, hence its poor showing in the area.
Apparently concerned with the impact of the ugly situation in further eroding into the fortunes of the party, the leaders are exploring ways to paper the cracks.
Before the last general elections, leaders of the party tried to resolve the crisis at various zonal meetings held in Ibadan, Lagos and Akure. They could not, however, resolve the internal crisis in the states. The situation has remained the same in some states.
In search of rallying point
What seems to have worsened the situation is the fact that former President Goodluck Jonathan, who used to be the rallying point of the various tendencies in the party, is no more in power. When Jonathan was in power, he was the one that always mediated in the South West PDP crisis.
Senator Buruji Kashamu, representing Ogun East, is another person who used to move round to find solution to the recurrent crisis in the zonal wing of the party. TheNiche gathered, however, that since his extradition issue took a dimension for the unpredictable, he has been very careful in his actions politically. He has not been vocal, as he was before the elections, especially before and during the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections.
Sources said that he has decided to lie low on political matters affecting the zone for now as he was said to have told some of his friends that his senatorial duties are the most important to him right now.
Unending crises in Oyo
In Oyo State where the crisis in the party is still very pronounced, leaders of the party have not been able to resolve the dispute which came up during and after the elections. Those loyal to the governorship candidate of the party in the state, Teslim Folarin, are still bitter that some prominent leaders of the party did not support them in the last election; hence their insistence that such people should remain suspended from the party.
Immediately after the last general elections, some prominent members of the party were accused of working against Folarin at the polls. As a result, former Minister of State, for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Jumoke Akinjide, and Saka Balogun, former Chief of Staff during the administration of former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, with their supporters were suspended from the party over “anti-party activities”.
The move to suspend them, it was gathered, was led by one of the founders of the PDP in Oyo, Yekeen Adeojo, at a meeting in Ibadan.
At the meeting, said to have been chaired by Adeojo, Akinjide and Balogun were suspended without being tried.
They have, however, not been taking the action against them lightly. They have, for instance, faulted their suspension, claiming that those who carried out the action had no right to do so, especially as no panel instituted by the party had found them guilty of the offence they were alleged to have committed.
The issue has further divided the party that was already deep in crisis in Oyo, before the last elections, over the governorship primary which produced Senator Folarin.
The crisis arising from the primary, it was learnt, led to Alao-Akala leaving the PDP to run on the platform of Labour Party (LP) and Seyi Makinde under Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Veneer of unity in Osun
Osun State also had its fair share of crisis during the governorship primary. The development, which, in fact, led to two former governors of the state (Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Isiaka Adeleke) leaving the party is still not yet over. Sources informed TheNiche that the governorship candidate of the party, Iyiola Omisore, who has now taken over control of the party’s leadership has been moving round to close ranks and bring the aggrieved members together. It was also said that his efforts have continued to yield good results, particularly as the hitherto estranged leaders have at different occasions, these days, lambasted the present government of Rauf Aregbesola for not paying workers’ salaries in the state.
Uncertainty prevails in Ogun
In Ogun State, it was gathered that the last election, which nearly tore the party apart, especially the Ogun East senatorial election which was won by Senator Kashamu, caused problem between former Governor Gbenga Daniel and Kashamu. Our reporter was told by a highly dependable source that it was Daniel who was tipped for the position, but while he was abroad, the Kashamu group held the primaries and edged him out. This caused crisis in the party before the election, but because of the desire of the party to ensure that it won the election, they both agreed to work together.
Even with the truce that seemed to have been contrived because of the poll, all is not well with the state chapter of the party. At the heart of the unfolding impasse, TheNiche learnt, is the crisis over who assumes the leadership of the party in the state. With Kashamu taking the Senate seat, the thinking was that the leadership of the party should fall on Daniel. Some members insist, however, that the state chairman, Bayo Dayo, who is an elderly person, should assume the leadership of the party. This, it was learnt, is causing ripples in the party presently.
The argument by those against Dayo is that since he is a loyalist of Kashamu, it means that the group is still in total control of the party. This is because the Daniel group, which could have gained upper hand if the governorship candidate of the party, Gbenga Isiaka, had won the election, lost to Governor Ibikunle Amosun. They, thus, insist that it is only reasonable that the leadership of the party should rest on Daniel who was a former governor of the state to reposition the party ahead of other elections to be held in the state.
Fragile peace in Ondo
In Ondo State, the crisis, which reared its head before the presidential election, when Governor Olusegun Mimiko joined the party from the LP which brought him into power, is yet to be completely contained. But the governor has in a way been able to manage those who did not defect to other political parties before and after the election. With that deft move, his group is now in control of the party in Ondo.
It was said that the governor is now trying to ensure that there is sanity in the party and to prevent further uprising in the party. But sources informed TheNiche that the way things are handled would determine whether the party will slide into a bigger mess in future.
Lagos chapter slides
Lagos is another state, like Oyo, where the crisis in the party is still deep, given that all the warring factions are still not prepared to sheathe their swords. The Musiliu Obanikoro group and the Bode George camp are still at loggerheads. The Obanikoro group claims that it is right in taking on the camp loyal to the former Deputy National Chairman (South), though the national body of the party, disagrees. The situation on the ground now indicates that the two groups are still not working together.
This was reflective in the prosecution of the governorship petition filed at the Election Petition Tribunal against the APC candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode, in which the party went into the case as a divided house. There are speculations that the division may have affected their case. Those who hold this view insist that if the combatants had put their acts together, the issue of the petition not being properly filed and which resulted in its dismissal at the tribunal would not have arisen.
Fayose, Mimiko to the rescue
To find a lasting solution to the crisis, which has engulfed the PDP in the South West, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and Mimiko, his Ondo counterpart, TheNiche learnt, have decided to call a special zonal meeting where all the issues affecting each state will be tabled and sorted out amicably. Fayose, for instance, had reportedly said that the last general elections taught the party in the South West a great lesson, adding that he and other leaders of the party would do everything possible to reposition it before the next elections.
He also declared that the performance of the present APC government in the zone has given the PDP the opportunity to start working on how it will take back the zone.
Also speaking on the move and the need to reposition the party, one of the leaders of the party in the South West, Lekan Balogun, told TheNiche that the party leaders are already working hard to unite the warring groups in the South West. He admitted that there is serious crisis in the zone, adding that they are working hard to resolve the issue. He pointed out that the reconciliation would not be limited to those within the party now, but to be extended to others who had left the party, especially those who left before the last general elections.
National Secretary of the party, Prof. Wale Ladipo, said in a telephone chat that the party has not allowed the last elections to become a setback to it. He said that at the national level of the party, they are already working out how all the issues affecting the party will be sorted out, saying that was the reason for Emeka Ihedioha‘s committee and other sub-committees set up to examine the issues on the ground for the party to bounce back fully in all the states of the federation, including the states in the South West region.
Toeing the same line, director of publicity and strategy of the party in Osun State, Diran Odeyemi, added that whatever the crisis the last general election could have caused would be resolved. He said that with the situation of things and what he described as bad performance of the APC governments in the South West, PDP will be well repositioned to take back the zone. He remarked that the people of the South West have known now that APC is a fraudulent political party and are full of regrets for voting for it in the last elections.
