Dr Adegbola Dominic, who a Lagos High Court recently ruled in his favour as State Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), speaks on the recent court judgment on the leadership crisis rocking the party, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS. Excerpts:
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You have just been restored into office by the judgment of a Lagos High Court. How do you see the verdict?
The verdict, as I said earlier, is a brilliant and unambiguous; a very clear judgment. The judge took her time to look into the issues in great details and gave very informed decisions on credible issues that were relevant in that case. And the judge made it clear that there was no vacancy in the place. On that basis, the judge, right from the start of the case, gave an order of injunction that the status quo should remain in the interim. And by that judgment, I was supposed to have continued in the office. The judge said the injunction at that time stated that they should have known that the proposed congress at that time was not legal. That was what the injunction meant, that I should continue as the chairman until now.
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Since the judgment, the other party has continued to insist that your tenure as chairman was for just 90 days and had expired since December 2020 and, therefore, you are no longer the chairman, and that the congress that brought in Engineer Deji Doherty was conducted by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party. What is your reaction to this?
You could see from the judgment that we have finally got now that number one; all the details were made clear and that is why I said the judgment was brilliant. To start with, all the grounds, all the legal requirements for the congress, they had breached; every aspect for holding the congress was breached. There was no notice, I mean adequate notice. They just gave about three or four days’ notice. No written notice was sent to the party and to the people. It was communicated by somebody, who said he was representing the National Working Committee. The National Working Committee has no power to hold the congress in the state or in the local government. It is the National Executive Committee (NEC) that has the power to conduct congress in any state. And in this case, just two people came together and said they were holding congress in the name of National Working Committee, which was totally illegal.
Now, there was no notice; there was no venue announced for the so- called congress. Again, a day before the proposed congress, somebody who said he was the secretary of the party, called a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, to inform her she was a delegate, and she was surprised, and she asked which delegate? He said state congress and she told the person that she was not aware that any congress was holding. The person now said it was holding and she now asked, where is the venue? He said he didn’t know. He (secretary) didn’t know the time, the venue, it means the delegates didn’t even know themselves.
The state congress should comprise five delegates from each ward. The chairman and the secretary of each ward must be there, and the whole state, Lagos State, having five delegates from each ward, and with about 240 wards, would be having over 1,200 delegates from all the wards. The Local Government Executive Committee has about 18 delegates to the congress, and they are 18 from each local government and we have 20 local governments. The State EXCO, all of them are members to that congress, and we have 50 or thereabout. And now, they had about 40 people holding a state congress, a state congress that should have over 2000 delegates.
Who exactly was behind the exercise?
It was the EXCO led by Dr Eddy Olafeso, who was then the South-West zonal chairman of the party. Of course, it must be in connivance of one or two members of the National Working Committee and so Eddy Olafeso was the face of the National Working Committee then. The fact remains that the congress was illegal; it was illegally put together.
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Now, people are getting worried that Lagos PDP is in dire situation such that at every moment that any election is approaching, it is then that the party finds itself in crisis. Is that so and should that continue to happen after 21 years of return to democracy?
Yes, it is unfortunate that people often see it as such. The fact is that it’s not just when elections are coming, PDP is permanently in crisis in Lagos State. But when elections are coming people expected everything should be rushed up, just because elections are coming. However, that does not remove the fact that there has been crisis. In this particular case, for instance, the crisis is not just coming up. Like I said before, this thing started 20 months ago, when these illegalities were perpetrated and we cried out that we should do things right; that we have a party constitution; that we should follow the constitution, do the right thing. But they refused. Even the national headquarters we protested to them that they should call these people, who are doing these illegalities to order. They did not, and that was how the thing festered and became a legal issue. That thing has been dragging since 20 months now. Some of us felt peace in the party should take a priority, and so we allowed the sleeping dog to lie and we decided to wait for the verdict of the court. If we are law-abiding; if we follow the rules of our part, the regulations, the constitution, there would be no crisis.
It is because the leadership of our party is not insistent on discipline, insistent on following the rules, on obeying the constitution of our party that is why we are having crisis. And the crisis is not just when election is coming; the crisis is there permanently. It’s there all the time. This one came up now because the court said it was ready to give the judgment. That hasn’t anything to do with the people in the party. You don’t tell a judge when to give her judgment because she decided to give the judgment, and it happened at the time when we are having elections coming. And it does not necessarily mean it should disrupt the functions, the workings of the party. If they say this is the chairman, this is the secretary, so be it. If they want to appeal, appeal to the court and let the court listen to your appeal, and all that. That should not disrupt the workings of the party at all. The other organisations are there; agencies of the party are there. The structures are there to go on and we expected that since the court has pronounced the judgment, all of us should abide by the judgment and if you want to appeal, you are allowed but meanwhile, for the sake of the party, you should go on. And that is discipline; that is following the constitution of the party. I don’t see why anybody should not agree with the judgment. And if you don’t agree, let us all work for the party.
At the time, we went to court, the National Working Committee insisted that Doherty was chairman and all that. We went to court and we left it with the court, and we continue to work for the party, to make the party function, until the court delivered its judgment. For the sake if the party, obey the rules, follow the judgment of the court. If you have any appeal to make, appeal. That should not affect the workings of the party. But, there is no discipline; everybody does what he likes, and that is why they say PDP is always in crisis.
The other parties have problems; the APC members have problems. They always have their own problems too. When elections are coming, they have their own crisis, but that does not stop the party from doing what it should be doing at the grassroots level and at the level of agencies of the party.
During the 20 months that the crisis lingered, how would you describe the way the former chairman handled the party?
I mean, it was obvious. I would say the party was in coma when it comes to real management of the party, and preparing for elections. We came back into this secretariat 10 days ago after the court judgment, everybody who came here would be surprised; it was overgrown with weeds. The chairs damaged, nothing was happening in the secretariat of the party that Doherty was running. I wouldn’t say he was the chairman because the court said he had never been chairman. So, as far as the court is concerned and as far as the law is concerned, he is not a former chairman of the party; he is just a member. When he handled the party, nothing had been functioning. The infrastructure of the secretariat is already dilapidated; we are just trying to put everything back to normal in the last one week. He wasn’t even managing the party.
Look at the senatorial election for instance, that was about the only serious thing he was expected to do. How can a party contest election and you will be scoring zero in some polling booths? The senatorial election that we had in Lagos-East, when Babatunde Gbadamosi contested, the chairman of the party that was supposed to build the structure of the party. It is the structure of the party that wins elections; it is not the candidate. But in our case when the party has no structure, you don’t develop the structure of the party, how can the party be scoring zero in a polling booth; don’t you have an agents? The agent should have a wife. If he doesn’t have a wife, he should have a relation. He must be living in that area before you can make him an agent in that polling booth. But here we are scoring zero; scoring one in a polling booth.
So, there is no doubt about it; the way the result came was so devastating. I knew from what Doherty had been doing that we could not have won that election, but that margin of defeat was unthinkable. Nobody could have imagined that. By the grace of God, we are back on track, and we are going to face restructuring of the party very seriously right from the polling booths. That is our mission now. In another one month, everything would be back to normal, hopefully.
Another major cause of our problem is our congresses, the people who are leading the party are not the ones chosen by generality of members. This must stop if we want to progress in this party. It is wrong for some leaders to get themselves together in some corner, somewhere in a hotel premises or some rooms, surround themselves with thugs and miscreants, get inside there and start sharing party positions. So, instead of holding a congress in a way it has been specified and allow the members to choose their leaders, they choose leaders for them. In my own ward in Alimoso, we have never seen our youth leader chosen for us from somewhere. Some wards don’t even know their chairmen. They know their names but they had never met them because they were forced on them by some leaders, whose slots they were when they were sharing the offices. In Lagos Mainland, the current state financial secretary is also the local government secretary in Lagos Mainland. They didn’t even vote for him. He is still the secretary, and that’s how it is in many places. Somewhere, the chairman is also the deputy chairman; that’s the confusion we have in the party.
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