Fresh Crisis Hits Ondo PDP as Former Senatorial Candidate Drags Party to Court

Fidelis David in Akure

The crisis in the Peoples’ Democratic Party(PDP) in Ondo State is deepening as the party’s candidate for Ondo North Senatorial seat in the 2019 general elections, Dr. Olusegun Philip-Alonge, (Popularly known as ‘Opa Isegun’), has dragged the party to court for illegally suspending him from the party.

In a law suit filed by his lawyer, Mr. Akin Jinadu, Philip-Alonge sued the party claiming the sum of N100, 000, 000 to be paid as general damages and for failing to include his name as delegate in the last national convention of the party.

Alonge, while briefing journalists at Ugbe-Akoko, in Akoko North West Local Government Area of the state, said he approached the judiciary because the party’s internal issues resolution mechanism failed woefully.

He alleged that “the South-west and national bodies did not deem it fit to reply to my humble and well-meaning request for resolution. At this point, I am committed to allowing the court to do justice to this matter. The court now, meaning the Supreme Court of Nigeria.”

Philip-Alonge accused the State Chairman of PDP, Mr. Fatai Admas, of being saddled with a divisive, destructive, retrogressive, undemocratic, dysfunctional, and tyrannical management and leadership that has time and again sabotaged the party’s ability to win elections.

He said: “The Fatai Admas-led state working committee has ditched the party constitution, shredded the instituted civil rights, most importantly, freedom of speech, freedom of association, the right to exist freely without coercion and without being bullied, and access to due process.

“At no time in modern human history has a major political organisation been run on shenanigans, finding members guilty of trumped-up charges without due process, and at no time in the history of Nigeria has people been bullied, and denied their rights, and summarily dismissed from the Party like what has happened in Ondo PDP in the past 15 months.

“Not even in the heydays of the dreaded General Sanni Abacha military Junta has a Nigerian be found guilty without trial and without being afforded a chance to defend themselves of any charges or accusations leveled against them.

“Since the emergence of Fatai Adams as the State Party Chairman, the Ondo State PDP has operated a guilty as charged approach to issues and acted with wanton disregard for the civil rights afforded the party members by the constitution of the party and that of Nigeria.

Philip-Alonge, who stated that he has not decamped from the party, alleged that “the vicious rumors, are lies from the pit of hell perpetrated by some misguided and disgruntled elements. Nothing can be further from the truth. I remain as loyal and as committed to the PDP and its ideal as ever before. I never at any point thought of decamping or departing the PDP. Neither did I decamp to the APC.

“The core of my lawsuit against the party is based on improper expulsion from the party by the illegal, callous, and unconstitutional actions of the State Party Chairman, Fatai Adams.

“Sometime in October 2021, the State Party Chairman, Fatai Adams, summarily declared that I have decamped from the PDP and communicated the same to the party secretariat at Wadata House, Abuja, in a masked and shoddily orchestrated effort to clear the road for his preferred senatorial candidate whom I defeated in the 2018 party primaries.

“Despite providing credible information to the contrary, Fatai Adams refused to reconsider his decision to banish me from the party without due process based on unverified rumors and lies that he and his cronies fabricated to feed their egos, satisfy their fantasies, and accomplish their political expediency.”

However, all efforts to seek the state party chairman’s reaction to the allegations leveled against him proved abortive as of the time of filling this report.