‘They’re being mischievous’
The South West Zonal Caretaker Committee of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has apologised to the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) over threat and insult by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde over the zonal congress.
In a statement, yesterday, by Secretary of the Caretaker Committee, Daisi Akintan, Governor Makinde’s threat that there would be dire consequences if the South-West zonal congress was not held on Saturday April 10, 2021, was described as unfortunate and unbecoming of someone who used the party’s platform to become governor despite being inconsistent as a member.
Rising from its meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Saturday, seven out of the 12 members of the caretaker committee said the NWC members and other stakeholders of the party should not see Makinde’s vituperation as representing the position of the PDP in the South-West.
Apart from the zonal secretary, other members who attended the meeting include Mrs. Funmilayo Ogun, Ayobola Fadeyi-Awolowo, Prince Nekan Olateru- Olagbegi, Wahab Owokoniran, Alhaji Mustapha Sikiru and Martins Olu- Abiloye.
The caretaker committee members said it was laughable that Governor Makinde could insinuate that members of the NWC were compromised just because they choose to obey the rule of law.
They said the governor lacked moral justification to threaten PDP with defection to another party, having worked against the party in 2007, 2011 and 2015.
“We align ourselves with the position of the state chairmen that the PDP existed before Governor Makinde returned from the Social Democratic Party (SDP) under which he contested the 2015 governorship election, and if today or tomorrow, he opts out of the PDP, the party will remain.
“To us, the party is not an appendage of anyone, it is greater than all of us, including Makinde.
“We, therefore, urge that the NWC should totally disregard his statement and take it as the price the party must pay for enthroning a man who was never committed to the party,” the caretaker committee members said.
They insisted that being in the majority of seven against five, their position that the South-West congress must not hold in Ibadan, Oyo State because of security challenges, remained sacrosanct.
To further show that Ibadan is not safe for the congress, they said a few weeks ago, a prominent leader of the party in Oyo State, Mulikat Adeola-Akande, accused a close ally of Governor Makinde of threatening her life.
In his reaction to the committee’s apology to NWC, the Publicity Secretary of PDP in the state, Akeem Olatunji, said: “Whoever is doing that is being mischievous. It shows we are prepared. They are supposed to join Makinde to take the bull by the horns. They should be approaching delegates instead of going into the media”
