By Deji Elumoye
A member of the National Assembly, Senator Biodun Olujimi, on Monday blamed the national leadership of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the crisis rocking the party in Ekiti State.
The ranking senator, who was reacting to the parallel PDP state congresses held in Ekiti last weekend, stressed that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) took sides by supporting the group led by a former governor of the state, Mr Ayodele Fayose.
She said: “The National Executive of the party is behind the former governor. If not, why did they allow him to write every list including my senatorial district? The caretaker committee chairman of the party in the state declined to hold the state congress citing the crisis in the party but the national secretariat directed the secretary of the caretaker committee to conduct the illegal congress which he did.”
She also explained that the state congress held a few days ago, was bound to fail based on the faulty foundation laid by the PDP national leadership which refused to carry every stakeholder including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security people along.
“I believe that is the way the national body wants it because from the start, the congress was built to fail. A congress that happened and there was no delegates list and no official of the Independent National Electoral Commission was on ground to supervise it. The police did not also give security backing and there was no sufficient information.
“The ward congress was not done but the national secretariat of the party gave former governor Fayose the opportunity to write names of delegates even in my senatorial district where he did not support me as the candidate of the party in 2019 National Assembly elections.
“He wrote all the list and the party took it from him. The party asked him to concede two local government areas to me because my people did not allow his people to come in there. I have been the only one managing the party with my other colleagues,” she said.
According to the former Senate Minority Leader, “If the party had wanted to do a credible vongress, they should have done the three ad hoc delegates because that was what our constitution provided for. Yet they said they held a congress to fill in the post. So, our group decided to hold parallel congress too if what the party wanted to promote was illegality and impunity. We will stand on what we have done until something major is done about it.”
Olujimi further stated that her group decided to oppose and will continue to resist any illegality being carried out by the Fayose camp of the PDP in Ekiti State.
“The truth of the matter is that I did not choose to lead a faction. Some people came together and said that they were against a particular way of handling the party. They were against violence, imposition, impunity and all forms that went against democratic tenets of the management of a political party especially as it has been exhibited severally in Ekiti State.
“Those who came together said they need a face to the movement. That is how I became the face of the movement. I am not the only one. It is a collection of leaders of the PDP of which so many people are part of, including Senator Duro Faseyi and 12 other leaders,” the former deputy governor of Ekiti State said.
