Between Olabode George, Salvador as Lagos PDP enters into another fresh crisis

 Former chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Moshood Adegoke Salvador, some days ago dumped the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC) on account of misunderstanding between him and the former deputy national chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George. BOLA BADMUS reports the development and the fresh crisis which the party would still have to face and address.

It is no longer news that Moshood Adegoke Salvador, the erstwhile chairman, Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) announced his exit from the party and decided to join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The politician made the announcement to cross over to APC precisely on Monday, May 28, 2018 at his residence at Salvador Tower in Surulere area of the state.

The announcement followed the press conference by the former deputy national chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George, at his Ikoyi office on Lugard Road, where he tasked the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, and the Attorney General of the Federation to probe vigorously into the circumstances that led to the death of the chairman, Apapa chapter of the PDP, Prince Adeniyi Aborishade, urging that the culprits and their sponsors be brought to book.

Salvador, a former member of the House of Representatives, alongside some other party chieftains were detained on account of the death of Aborishade and was thereafter discharged by a Lagos High Court after spending some days at the Kirikiri Prison, following a submission from the state attorney-general’s office.

At the conference, which he addressed with another member, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP, Dr Remi Akintoye; former Lagos State deputy governor, Senator Kofoworola Buknor-Akerele; Madam Silifat, wife of slain Aborishade, among others, George, reading a statement entitled, ‘Who Killed My Husband? Aborishade’s wife cries out,’ stated that the party chieftain was murdered at a rally held at Igbosuku in the Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos, which Salvador presided over.

George alleged that at the said rally where Aborishade was murdered, no single police officer was present whereas at Epe and Ibeju-Lekki, where all PDP local government chairmen earlier paid a pre-election, awareness visit, it was not so, lamenting what he termed “a glaring security aberration which no doubt created a security breach that allowed the murderers of Aborishade to easily and blatantly carry out their apparent premeditated and dastardly act.”

But Salvador, while giving reasons for quitting the PDP for APC, said he could no longer stay in the same fold with George, who he said had been frustrating all efforts he had made to grow the party ahead of 2019.  He also he denied that he knew anything about Aborishade’s murder, maintaining that he had to be rescued from the scene by men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

“How can they now be pointing fingers at me that I knew about how Aborishade died? Men of the NSCDC whisked me away from the scene that day. I even lost one of my shoes. Let them show the video if they have any. They are all lying. Now we will let them know that he (Chief George) is the real problem in Lagos PDP,” he said.

He equally lamented that the PDP zonal and national headquarters never appreciated all his efforts, saying it was only on Monday, August 27, 2018 that the PDP national chairman, Uche Secondus, and other party leaders deemed it fit to call to enquire whether he was contemplating dumping the PDP.

However, it is the view George’s that Salvador was not saying the truth and that what actually happened was that Salvador had moved against the power-sharing arrangements that produced the leadership of the party that he sat over.

George would not tell anybody that following the crisis that rocked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and pitched Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Senator Ahmed Makarfi against each other, and the final resolution of such crisis, it was resolved that a sharing formula be adopted between loyalists of the two party chieftains to produce the leadership for Lagos PDP.

According to George, the sharing formula was initially supposed to be 70 per cent for the Makarfi group to which he (George) and Salvador belonged, and 30 per cent for those who were Sheriff’s loyalists, to which Senator Aduke Maina and Otunba Segun Adewale, a one-time factional chairman of PDP in the state, belonged.

But following further pleading and negotiation, George said the Makarfi group in Lagos had to concede extra five per cent slot to the Sheriff group to reflect 65/35per cent power sharing arrangement, but expressed surprise that Salvador who belonged to the majority group and should enforce the arrangement now turned around to install Sheriff’s loyalists as the majority in the party leadership.

Speaking in a recent interview with journalists shortly after the death of Aborishade, George said what happened concerning the way Salvador had been running the party was “as a result of inordinate ambition and lack of respect for the constitution of the party. Why I won’t like to go into details is because it is already a police affair.”

“Remember when Modu Sheriff was head of the party, then Makarfi went all the way to the Supreme Court on the question of who was in charge. I remember the very day after the judgment, Makarfi, in his own wisdom, decided that there was no victor, no vanquish. We had prayed that when we would start to manage the party, justice, fairness and equity would become the principles of the party. We should not personalise things for our own gain.

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“We decided to run the party on the 30/70 per cent sharing basis to accommodate the Sheriff faction and the Makarfi faction. We agreed on that at the time I was contesting; and since we agreed on that, it should extend to Lagos, Lagos would not be left in the lurch. Then I went away for about three months. By the time I came back, there was cacophony of arguments on what were agreed on.

‘The matter was referred to Abuja where we agreed on 35/65 per cent sharing formula. And how can the minority 35 per cent have more members than the 65 per cent majority in the Lagos executive. We spoke about it and Salvador refused it.

“He was advised to meet the elders of the party to resolve the matter. But by the time I came back from overseas, he had started manipulating the list. He headed out to each local government trying to inaugurate the list generated by him. People started calling and I asked what was going on. In fact, he wanted to hold a rally and the national body told him that your leader is not back. The national body asked him to stop all the inaugurations that he was doing; that the National Vice Chairman South-West and the National Organising Secretary would be visiting to resolve the crisis. He headed out; he was going from one council to the other. But each time he reached any council, the 65 per cent majority would disagree with him.”

Findings have shown that leaders of the party have since met to choose a replacement for Salvador in person of Dr Adegbola Dominic, a former governorship aspirant on the party’s platform in the 2015 governorship election.

His choice, according to report, was informed by the sharing formula arrangement already on ground between loyalists of George and Maina. But while the party was expecting the PDP headquarters in Abuja to ratify the nomination, it instead came out to announce the current deputy chairman of the party, Waliu Ibrahim as the acting state chairman of the party. Ibrahim was deputy to Salvador.

The letter, which was signed by Senator Umaru Ibrahim Tsauri, the national secretary of the PDP, stated that Ibrahim was to serve as the acting chairman for 90 days, in line with the party’s constitution.

This latest development is already causing fresh crisis which the Lagos PDP will have to address, notwithstanding that Salvador has left the fold.