Members of the People’s Democratic Party in Osun State on Thursday staged a protest against the alleged interference of Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde in the affairs of the party in Osun State.
According to news report by PointNigeriia, they also alleged the Southwest Zonal Chairman, Soji Adagunodo of disrupting the party activities using his office.
The party had wanted to conduct a 3 man Ward Adhoc delegates congress in preparation for the special state congress slated for March 7, where candidate of the party for the July 16 governorship election in the state would be elected.
However, the refusal of an Osun State High Court, sitting in Ile-Ife, to set aside the November 22, 2021 judgement which affirmed Soji Adagunodo, as the chairman of Peoples Democratic Party in Osun state, stalled the ward adhoc delegates.
The court in his judgement had held that the preservative order of an Ikirun High Court which declared Adagunodo as the chairman of the party was not appealed against, thus still subsists.
The national leadership of the PDP had approached the court with an application, asking that the court set aside its decision. But while ruling on the application on Wednesday, Justice A. Aderibigbe declined the application and refused to set aside its ruling.
Reacting to the decision of the court, Edmund Biriomoni, who represented Adagunodo in the matter said, the implication of the verdict is that the appointment of Wale Ojo, who was appointed acting chairman after Adagunodo had been elected South-West PDP chairman, was valid.
Meanwhile, the enraged protesters drawn from all the wards across the state stormed the party Secretariat on Thursday, at Biket in Osogbo amid songs. The party members were armed with placards with several inscriptions warning the interference by “external forces.”
Some of the inscriptions read: “Osun is not an Appendage of Oyo”, “Seyi Makinde, Please Keep Off”, PDP Govs, We Love and Respect You”, “Ademola Adeleke is Our Man”, among others.
Speaking, a chieftain of PDP and former Osun West Senatorial candidate, Dr Lere Oyewumi said the party is known for its forthrightness.
According to him, “the National Working Committee, NWC, headed by Senator Iyorcha Ayu has started so well because they had invited the stakeholders; about 150 of us to Abuja.
“We have discussed our grievances and they (National leadership) promised to be free, fair, just and honest to all. Yesterday is supposed to be our congress and they had already appointed 93 to conduct the congress across the local government in Osun State.
“They arrived Osun State on Wednesday, in the afternoon around 1, five leaders who ought to lead the congress invited us to a hotel they lodged, they said they can’t continue with the congress because they received court injunction.
“We link up with Abuja, we found out that it was a lie that the NWC did not order for the cancelation of the congress. Later, the day we learnt that Abuja stakeholders had met and postponed the congress officially.
“We want to believe that there are some forces within the PDP who are not interested in us winning this election in Osun State, unfortunately they are leaders of the party including a governor.
“We demand that all the people they sent here to conduct the congress, none of them should come back here, if we see their face here on Sunday, they will not live to tell the story.”
Oyewumi said the NWC must appoint people who are fair to all stakeholders.
“We learnt that they want to bring the Governor of Adamawa here, that is even worse because when we went for national convention, Fintiri was the convention chairman, what they did to us should not be allowed here; they waylaid us for almost five hours before our national delegates could be allowed to vote.
“We have presented our letter to the Chairman of the party to be transmitted to National Secretariat. Oyo State Governor and Adamawa should not be allowed to determine the issues in Osun PDP.
“What happen on Wednesday, we suspect the hand of Seyi Makinde, the way he is acting to us seems he is not interested in our progress, as a governor who is close to us, he suppose to be helping us but he is not,” he stated.
