Former President Olusegun Obasanjo
By Omololu Ogunmade
The crisis rocking Ogun State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deepened yesterday as the duly elected members of the executive committee fled to Lagos, where they called on the police and members of the State Security Service (SSS) to offer them the required protection to function in their respective offices.
Addressing a press conference in Lagos, the state chairman of the party, Chief Dayo Adebayo, lamented that despite four court judgments which upheld the emergence of his executive committee as a product of legal electoral process, another faction led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has refused to abide by these court judgments.
Instead, Adebayo said the group brandished a letter from the National Secretary of the party, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, asking a caretaker committee to take over the state secretariat of the party.
Adebayo said what was most ridiculous in the new trend was that Oyinlola recommended some convicted members of the party to constitute the caretaker committee, lamenting that despite a court sentencing such members to six months imprisonment, they are still walking free on the streets. Financier, Prince Buruji Kashamu, accused Obasanjo and former governorship candidate of the party of polarising the party into two without any just
cause, accusing the duo of betrayal.
He said it was shameful that Obasanjo who was Nigeria’s head of state on three occasions had opted to portray himself as a local politician.
“What is the business of Baba Obasanjo in local politics? Why should he allow his name to be dragged into this mess by Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Bode Mustapha and Idowu Olurin? He is our father. Why is he not resolving the problem and reconciling his children?” Buruji queried.
Both Kashamu and Adebayo who appealed to police and SSS to promptly intervene in the matter, warned that otherwise, the situation could degenerate into violence, emphasising that they had been pushed to the wall.
They flayed Oyinlola for allegedly writing a letter to the police and SSS to take over the party secretariat in Abeokuta, the state capital, arguing that he had exceeded his constitutional duties.
Adebayo also said unless the national leadership of the party rises up to nip the crisis in the bud now, the protracted crisis rocking the party in the state will push it into extinction.
He alleged that those fuelling the crisis in Ogun State do so because of their calculations towards 2015.
Adebayo reiterated the determination of the executive committee to resist the imposition of illegitimate leaders on the party, maintaining that his team is a legal and legitimate leadership which emerged from a constitutional congress witnessed by the security agents.