•The Inside Story Revealed!
The crack in the Ogun PDP has eaten deeper as three candidates lay claim to the gubernatorial ticket of the party. While INEC had moved to present a Certificate of Return to Ladi Adebutu to confirm him as the party’s candidate in the state. Another aspirant, Segun Showumi has also claimed he’s the party's flagbearer after winning at the primary conducted at another venue in Ogun State.
Also,
there is a separate faction led by Samson Bamgbose, who had claimed that the
winner of Ogun Primary is Segun Awoyemi, and insisted that the National Working
Committee of the party had no right to present a certificate of return to any
governorship candidate based on subsisting judgement. Then there is the popular
real estate mogul and top Ogun politician Jimi Lawal who has filed a suit
against the Sikirulah-led faction that produced Ladi Adebutu as the party
gubernatorial flagbearer, insisting that the delegate list was manipulated.
Let’s
hint you that the party crisis did not just start now, it started over six
years ago.
In
2016, there was a judgement. The judgement emanated when there were parallel
congresses conducted under the late Senator Buruji Kashamu and Hon. Oladipupo
Adebutu’s factions. The judgement FHC/L/C8/636/2016 recognizes the Engr. Bayo
Dayo led exco as the authentic State exco. That the state exco can never be
dissolved nor harmonized. The Adebutu faction refused to vacate the order or
appealed the judgement because they thought it was a child’s play.
This
whole scenario snowballed into 2018 when it dawned on them that the judgment
was a stumbling block. They approached the Appeal Court and they were informed
that the judgment was not appealed within the time frame and the same was the
position of the Supreme Court when they approached it. This was how the late
Buruji Kashamu got the party structure in his pocket at the time, and the party
structure remained the same ever since. The judgement delivered by Justice
Muhammed in a suit number FHC/ ABJ/ CS/ 208/ 2020 is still very much alive,
confirming the exco as the authentic one. It is based on the judgement and
structure that the Bamgbose faction held their primaries and produced Segun
Awoyemi as the party flagbearer.
Ladi
Adebutu won the governorship primary election of the PDP which was held at the
Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, on May 25 by the
Sikirulah’s led faction. On the same day, the Segun Showunmi-led faction held a
parallel governorship primary election which produced him as the governorship
candidate.
While
Showunmi is laying claim to the party’s ticket, another aspirant, Jimi Lawal,
has written to the NWC of the party, calling for the cancellation of the
primary election over alleged manipulation of the delegates’ list.
The
loyalists of two governorship "aspirants", Ladi Adebutu and Jimi
Lawal, clashed over the delegate list to adopt for the exercise.
A
party member who witnessed the rancour observed that some loyalists of Lawal,
raised an objection, rejecting a delegates’ list brought from the national
secretariat of the party in Abuja. This led to a shouting match between supporters
of Lawal and Adebutu who also engaged in free for all fight. One of the aides
of Lawal and a former loyalist of Buruji Kashamu, Austin Oniyokor, held some
documents claiming to have been certified by INEC and insisted that the
exercise must not take place unless the said document is adopted.
The
drama which lasted for over 30 minutes saw security operatives watch helplessly
while INEC officials temporarily relocated from the hall.
While
a faction had insisted that the delegate’s list being adopted was brought from
the national headquarters of the party by the electoral committee, the other
faction claimed that the list have been tampered with to favour Ladi Adebutu.
One
of the aspirants for the Ogun State Assembly who spoke to City People anonymously
admitted that the list was tampered with and the delegates in the new list did
not conform to the existing document.
“We
heard that when INEC officials came from Abuja, an influential gubernatorial
aspirant approached them from the airport and took the responsibility of their
hospitality. He hosted them in a luxury hotel and gave them classy treatment.
We do not know how much they were paid, but we have it on good authority that
the aspirant gained access to the list and tampered with it to favour him.
Some
of us who are aspirants can testify to this because we noticed the names on the
delegate’s list are the ones we are not familiar with.
“Personally,
I have resolved to approach the court, and challenge the process. “We cannot
continue to deceive ourselves and at the same time promise good governance to
unsuspecting electorates,” he stated.
The
faction pushing for Segun Showunmi is also hell-bent on the narrative that the
process that produced Ladi Adebutu is void and has also approached the court to
do the needful. Segun Showunmi warned that the party may not produce a
candidate in the 2023 gubernatorial poll. He described the presentation of the
certificate of return as “lawless shenanigans.”
In
his own words: “On the so-called certificate issued on Ogun PDP Governorship.
What came to my mind upon hearing that despite the cases before the court on
the Ogun PDP governorship primaries, very typical of them, “They have gone on
to purportedly issue a worthless piece of card to one of the contenders. “Please
ask them what became of this type of lawless shenanigans. they tried it in
2011, they failed, in 2015 they failed, and in 2019 they failed. “It is too
early to celebrate in 2023. Let us wait on the courts.
“Relax! Ef’arabale! This is not a lawless society, APC danced in Zamfara, they ended up with no candidate in Rivers, how much more with a location where they are looking for 100% of Zero.”
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