Ayu Inaugurates Ekiti Caretaker Committee, Says PDP Ready to Reclaim State

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senator Iyorchia Ayu, yesterday, inaugurated the Ekiti State Caretaker Committee, and declared that the main opposition party was ready to reclaim the state from the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The party recently suspended the State Executive Committee and in its place, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party  approved the appointment of Ekiti State Caretaker Committee to run the affairs of the party in the state for a period of three months effective Friday, January 20, 2023 and to function pursuant to Section 24(2) of the PDP Constitution (as amended in 2017).

However, speaking at the inauguration yesterday in Abuja, Ayu, who was represented by Deputy National Chairman North, Umar Damagun, admitted that the state chapter of the party had been in crisis.

He pointed out that the task of the new caretaker committee was to ensure that all stakeholders were under the umbrella to deliver the state to PDP on February 25.

“If you noticed recently, we had an election in Ekiti State, the state chapter of the party has always been bedeviled by crisis. As a result of that, we had one of our worst outings in the election in Ekiti State,” he said.

The chairman pointed out that Ekiti has always been a PDP state, saying from what the leadership of the party witnesses during the recent presidential campaign in the state, Ekiti still belongs PDP.

His words: “That gave us the courage to sit down and say we have to get things right. How do we do this thing? Is to be able to dissolve that executive that has always been in one crisis or the other and give a new life to the party by constituting a caretaker Committee, which will give us a brand-new executive, that will be all inclusive.

“First of all, I believe you must have been selected from wherever you come from, because you have distinguished yourselves in the activities of this party and we know you have the capacity and the capability to drive this party to where we are expecting. Mind you, we are in an election year.

“In the next few days, we’ll have our first election, which is the election of the President and National Assembly member followed by the State Assembly election because you don’t have gubernatorial election in Ekiti.”  The chairman urged the committee to bring everyone together to work assiduously for the benefit of winning this election in Ekiti.

Chairman of the Caretaker Committee, Sadiq Obanoyen, said though the task before the committee was enormous, he pledged that members would work together to deliver the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar in the state.