Edo PDP crisis festers as party suspends Reps member, Ogbeide-Ihama, LGA chairman

The battle of supremacy between the old members of the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the new members, who decamped to the party alongside Governor Godwin Obaseki from the All Progressive Congress (APC), in June 2020, festered on Thursday evening with Tue suspension of the member representing Oredo Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives, Hon. Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama.

Besides Ogbeide-Ihama, the Oredo Oredo Local Government Area PDP Chairman, Oduwa Igbinosun, was also suspended on allegations of embezzlement and anti-party activities.

Ogbeide-Ihama, who until Governor Obaseki crossed over to the PDP, was the favoured aspirant to clinch the PDP governorship ticket for the September 19, 2020, gubernatorial election but had to step down for Obaseki to emerge as PDP and went ahead to win the election for his second term in office.

The Edo PDP has been in crisis ever since the new entrants demanded that they should be integrated into the party structures from the Ward to the state executive level, a move the old members rejected, arguing that the structures remained for the three-year duration the executives were elected.

The matter came to a head last week when the governor submitted an 11-man commissioner nominees list to the state House of Assembly, all APC decampees, and went ahead to swear them in on Tuesday, to the exclusion of the old PDP.

The final stroke from the governor’s camp was delivered on Saturday, at an enlarged stakeholders meeting, where Obaseki announced that he had taken over the structures and leadership of the party in the state and issued a seven-day ultimatum to the old PDP to integrate the new members or kiss the remaining seven commissioner slots goodbye.

At an enlarged meeting of the PDP at the Oredo PDP Secretariat, Mr. Omoregbe John from Oredo Ward 8 moved a motion for the suspension of Hon. Ogbiede-Ihama and Igbinosun.

The party leaders and members said the conduct of the suspended members was frustrating the growth of the PDP in Oredo LGA.

Earlier in the day, the Oredo Ward 4 Chairman of the party, Friday Ihama, was suspended.

Hardly had the dust of the gale of suspensions in Oredo settled, when the news filtered in that the National Vice Chairman, South-South, of the party, Chief Dan Osi Orbih, was also suspended by the leadership of the party in Edo North Senatorial District base of Orbih, the immediate past State Chairman of the party.

Tribune Online gathered that Orbih, who was suspended alongside five other LGA chairmen in Edo North, the District’s Senatorial leader, Samuel Saiki, and the State Party Secretary, Hillary Otsu, all played pivotal roles in the admission of Obaseki to the PDP, when his second term bid was truncated by his erstwhile party, the APC, on the ground that his credentials were deficient.

Meanwhile, the Publicity Secretary of the party in the state, Chris Nehikhare, has dismissed the gale of suspensions rocking the party as a figment of the imagination of trouble brewers in the state.

Nehikhare, in a statement he endorsed said that the PDP remained united in the state and urged party loyalists to remain calm.

“Nigerians, Edo people and especially PDP members and supporters are advised to ignore the post, press release or communique purporting that the National Vice Chairman, Chief Dan Osi Orbih and other elected officials of the party from Edo North Senatorial district have been suspended.

“Edo PDP is a peaceful, united, and vibrant political party where dialogue is our watchword. We encourage political engagements and contestations which must be guided by the tenets of our constitution. We however frown at political indiscipline that brings disrepute to our brand,” Nehikare reiterated.

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