PDP crisis deepens as court sacks Oyinlola

The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party deepened on Friday as the Federal High Court, Abuja sacked the National Secretary of  the party, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola.

His removal was the outcome of a suit filed by a faction of the party’s Ogun State chapter, led by a businessman, Buruji Kashamu.

Oyinlola’s sacking is the latest in the crises rocking the party, coming on the heels of the threat by some governors elected on its platform to quit the PDP unless its National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, resigns.

The party is also divided over the election of a chairman for its Board of Trustees even as President Goodluck Jonathan and one of his predecessors, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, are embroiled in a crisis of confidence over the BOT issue.

The court, presided over by Justice Abdul Kafarati, took the decision in its judgment in the suit brought by the Ogun State Executive Committee of the PDP, through its counsel, Amaechi Nwaiwu (SAN).

In the suit filed by the chairman and secretary of the state chapter of the party, Adebayo Dayo and Alhaji Semiu Sodipo, respectively, for and on behalf of other officers, the plaintiffs challenged the retention of Oyinlola as the PDP National Secretary, even after a Lagos Federal High Court cancelled the zonal congresses that produced him.

The court agreed with the plaintiffs that the former governor was not fit to hold the position of PDP National Secretary on the grounds that the Lagos FHC judgment had nullified the South-West zonal congress through which he was nominated.

The said South-West Congress of the PDP, which was conducted on March 21, 2012, was nullified by the order and judgment of the Lagos FHC on April 27, 2012, and May 2, 2012, on the grounds that it violated an earlier FHC order of February 16, 2012.

As a result of the development, the plaintiffs approached the Abuja FHC, asking it to sack Oyinlola from office as there was no basis for him to retain the position.

PUNCH