Ekiti 2018: Defections may mar our chances, Olujimi warns PDP

A former deputy governor of Ekiti State and Senate’s Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Biodun Olujimi, has expressed worries over the defections and resignation of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains in the state and warned that this might hurt the party’s chances in the coming election.

Chief Olujimi, who currently represents Ekiti South in the Senate, said on Thursday at Ikere-Ekiti after inaugurating some constituency projects, said the seeming aloofness of the leadership of the party to the development was not helpful to the PDP in the state.

Olujimi, a governorship aspirant in the July election, said: “It is worrisome that we are losing our prominent members. Former Deputy Governors Lawal and Omoyeni are major stakeholders in our party. They worked hard in the last election of 2014 for the enthronement of Governor Ayodele Fayose’s government.

“But I am a fighter. I will fight on until the right things are done in the PDP. The Senator David Mark-led reconciliation committee set up to look into Ekiti issue has given us its words that the primary will be free and fair. The leadership itself didn’t want their names soiled over Ekiti issue.

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“Our national leaders promised to be up and doing. They should note that five aspirants are fighting for a ticket and a situation where you will tie the hands of four of them backwards and leave one untied and expect us to fight on, this is injustice and it is against the spirit of our party’s constitution.

“All the governorship aspirants in the party are working together to ensure that we rescue our party. To allay the fears that no one can rig the primary, the statutory delegate list has been given to us from Abuja. It is available
because it is our property.

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“PDP leaders won’t want to go through pains and throes of litigations witnessed in the past. So let them come back and I want to allay their fears that the primary will be free, fair and credible.”

She said she would personally reach out to the defectors to woo them back to the party, and expressed the hope that all the crises in the party would be resolved amicably for the PDP to approach the election as a united family

Speaking on the projects, Olujimi said the projects commissioned were: road, drainages, solar light for erosion control in some towns, saying she has included the Kabba-Omuo-Ifaki and Ado-Ifaki-Otun roads in the 2018 budgets for reconstruction.