Oyo PDP and its coat of many crises

DARE ADEKANMBI looks at the issues tearing acclaimed resurgent opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State, including the undercurrent of the guber ticket for 2019 elections.

SINCE 2010 when a big political fight broke out over the control of the soul of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State and shredded it, the umbrella has not known peace let alone achieve the unity it enjoyed in 2003 when it won the governorship and control of the state.

But after two successive governorship elections in which the party was dealt deadly electoral blows, it dawned on the party leadership, particularly those at the headquarters in Wadata Plaza, Abuja, that unless something drastic was urgently done, PDP might go into extinction in the state, before or immediately after the 2019 elections.

And so it became a herculean task for the national caretaker committee of the party led by a former governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, to see to the rejuvenation of the party. Promptly, the committee considered it wise to woo heavyweights who had dumped the party to return and salvage it from extinction.

Makarfi embarked on a series of travels to win back the big wigs that had left the party in the state to come back and help rebuild it. Late last year, he and other members of the committee visited a former governor of the state, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, former governor Adebayo Alao-Akala and Seyi Makinde. While Alao-Akala was in the United Kingdom detailed his loyalists to receive the team, Ladoja and Makinde welcomed them with open arms and gave strong commitment to return to the party.

“The only way forward politically in Nigeria is for the only party with national widespread, the PDP, to go back to the basics and bring all its members back, create a level playing field and entrench internal party democracy so that the acronym of power to the people could become real.

“Ladoja is a great observer of things in Nigeria, he loves the country, the people of the state, and he always speak for them, either in power or when out of power. We are here to take you back to where you belong because the party needs you as well as the people of Oyo State and Nigeria. I have the mandate of everybody in the party to bring you back,” Makarfi had said during the visit.

When Alao-Akala returned to the country, he met with Makarfi in Abuja and explained to him reason he could not dump the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the PDP then. However, Ladoja and Makinde dumped Accord and SDP respectively and rejoined the PDP.

The leadership of the new PDP naturally fell on Ladoja, who spoke about spreading the net wide to morph all opposition parties in the state into the new PDP. A faction of the Labour Party and some folks from the Alliance for Democracy (AD) decided to join Accord, old PDP and SPD to be part of the new PDP.

The pro- and anti-status quo

But just when the people of the state and observers were beginning to think that a formidable opposition had been put in place and that strife in the party was over and the battle done, a fresh crisis has broken out in the party, threatening to destroy its soul again.

While the party conducted its ward and local government congresses without serious hitches, a big disagreement broke out during the state congress, culminating in a parallel state congress. However, the congress committee sent from Abuja and led by a former governor of Cross Rivers State, Liyel Imoke, went to Watershed, the agreed venue of the congress. Makinde and his group held own congress at a different location.

Essentially, the party is polarised between those who want the executive elected at the congress conducted by officials from Abuja and witnessed by INEC, police and others on the one hand and the Makinde group that wants accommodation for more names from their camp.

The other camp, which won the majority of the state executive, has described such request as impunity. It argued that the party officers that emerged at the Watershed congress were products of a consensus reached among the five parties that form the new PDP. The 27 state executive members, according to this group, were distributed among the five parties as follows.

Accord, which is Ladoja’s former party, got (seven); old PDP got 13. The old PDP’s slots were said to have been shared among Senator Ayo Adeseun (ex-Oyo Central Senator); Senator Hosea Agboola (ex-Deputy Senate Whip); Jumoke Akinjide (ex-FCT Minister of State); Honourable Ajibola Muraina (ex-House of Representative member); Honourable Mulikat Akande-Adeola (ex-House Leader) and others. SDP, which is Makinde’s group in the larger alliance, had three slots; LP got three as well as, while AD got only one slot.

The SDP, represented by Makinde, is at the vanguard of the campaign for harmonization of the party executive to find more accommodation for more people from his side. He is being supported in the clamour by Senator Agboola and Honourable Akande-Adeola who probably felt short-changed in the sharing of the slots given to the old PDP members.  But all other leaders opposed the move, describing it as the height of impunity.

The crisis over the executive blew open on February 20, when a meeting of the opposing sides was called to Abuja. Addressing newsmen on what transpired at the meeting, the state chairman, Alhaji Kunmi Mustapha, said the meeting was made to look like it was the NWC of the party that summoned, whereas it was an arrangement between the South-West zonal chairman, Dr Eddy Olafeso, in league with the Deputy National chairman (South), Elder Yemi Akinwonmi and the national organising secretary.

Mustapaha said “We received a call from Abuja that I should see that I bring five people each from Ladoja’s faction and five from Seyi Makinde’s faction. To me personally, I see that as an insult. How could anyone compare Makinde with Ladoja? We did the ward and local government congresses successfully and there were neither factions nor rancour. We did not have any problem because the arrowheads of the five parties were appointed coordinators to handle the congresses in the wards and councils.

“The day we shared the offices, we did not do so on the basis of factions, but among the five political parties that came together to form the new PDP, namely the old PDP, Accord, SDP, Labour Party and AD. While PDP got 13 offices, Accord got only six, SDP, three, Labour Party, three, and AD, one. Seyi Makinde can’t say he has not got any slots. He has three members given to him in the state executive,” he said.

According to him, the proposal to give 14 to Ladoja and others and cede the remaining 12 to Makinde and his group was broached at the meeting. He explained that there was no consensus as the meeting ended in a deadlock.

The chairman, who spoke after a meeting of the state executive, announce the passing of a vote of no confidence in the zonal chairman, Olafeso, a man he accused of being at the centre of the crisis rocking the state. Mustapha also admitted that the race for the governorship ticket of the party was principally responsible for the battle in the battle.

In response, Makinde, who is the arrowhead of the group wanting a tinkering with the state executive, denied being in any leadership contest with Ladoja, describing the former governor as not only the leader of the party, but also his own leader as well.

“The current situation within the PDP is a clarion call for us to urgently and dispassionately decide whether we want to contest the 2019 election for its sake or we want to win the election to liberate our people from a paradoxical democratic captivity,” Makinde said, calling on the other camp to accept the harmonisation of the adding that no one could clap with one hand.

In the midst of the crisis, Ladoja has announced his intention to dump the party if the national leadership tampered with the state executive which the NEC approved. Speaking on a radio programme on Monday, Ladoja said impunity, which drove him away from the party in 2010 and which he was assured would not be repeated, appeared to be creeping into the party.

The Guber ticket angle

The crisis is the party cannot be divorced from the race for the guber ticket of the party. At the moment, a number of governorship aspirants have indicated interest in flying the party’s flag. They are Senator Olufemi Lanlehin, who was with Ladoja in Accord before they both joined the PDP; Makinde, Chief Alli; Senator Adeseun; Dr Nureni Adeniran, also a loyalist of Ladoja, and others.

The Makinde group is said to be uncomfortable with the fact that it is not in control of the majority of the party machinery and that this may make it difficult for the 2015 SDP guber candidate to clinch the ticket. Consequently, the group wants Abuja to intervene and find space for more of his loyalists in the state executive.

The counter argument from the other camps was that it might be more than meet the eye for the NWC of the party to contemplate tinkering with the state executive that was duly put in place. A huge amount of money was alleged to have exchanged hands between those in the Makinde group and the NWC members, even though the zonal chairman of the party, Dr Olafeso dismissed such as claim as unfounded and irresponsible.

The questions being asked by this group are: Why hasn’t the NWC issued a statement washing its hands off the crisis rocking the party in Oyo State? Why hasn’t the national leadership come out to affirm that the executive remains unchanged? Why would the NWC contemplate tampering with the party structure which has been duly approved by the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting last December? Should Makinde, assisted by a few NWC members, be given an undue advantage over other guber aspirants by giving hi, 12 of 26 slots? Where is the place of fairness, respect for internal democracy in the new PDP?

Risk of implosion is high

Both camps are not ready to back down from their high horses and are ready for a fight to the finish. Already, Ladoja’s loyalists have put a committee in place to shop for a new party where they think there will be respect for internal democracy of majority rule. In the communiqué issued at the end of meetings held in each of the three senatorial districts on Thursday, the party leaders and executive, including ward chairmen, said they would go with Ladoja if he leaves the party.

The presence of a former speaker of the state House of Assembly, Kehinde Ayoola, who was the Director General of Makinde’s campaign in 2015, in SDP national leadership composition is being interpreted as an indication that Makinde is already one leg out of the PDP and will pull out the remaining leg if the party’s state executive is not restructured to accommodate people from his side.

While the Makinde group, which appears confident of having its way in Abuja, has started reaching out to those threatening to abandon with Ladoja and thus mitigate the loss of his leaving the party, Ladoja’s loyalists have impressed it on him to re-open discussion with those who refused to be part of the new PDP at the merger talks on the alibi that their ‘progressive political gene’ might be mutated if they join the PDP. These people, however, pledged to forge an alliance with Ladoja wherever he is.

Sunday Tribune gathered that many leaders across the country have already waded in to prevent an exodus from PDP. Ladoja, it was gathered, was in Abuja for the better part of last week meeting a series of political leaders from across the country. But will the intervention work? Will the matter be resolved to the satisfaction of the warring groups?