Leaders
of the newly recognised Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State have
expressed their readiness to work with the members of the faction loyal
to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The Obasanjo loyalists were last Friday
removed as the leaders of the PDP in the state by the party’s National
Working Committee.
The PDP NWC had sacked the Obasanjo-backed executive of the party in Ogun State led by Senator Oladipo Odujinrin.
The Ogun PDP leaders however denied
fighting a personal battle with Obasanjo, describing the former
president as a father to all members of the party in the state.
Financier of the group, Mr. Buruji
Kashamu, said this at a meeting of the party members held to review the
recent decisions of the NWC in Ijebu-Igbo on Sunday.
Kashamu regretted what he called the use
of the name of the former President by those he described as
unscrupulous politicians in the state to commit atrocities and
illegalities.
This, he said, had resulted in Obasanjo
being misunderstood and his role being misconstrued, thus giving room
for the wrong impression held by many about the former president.
Kashamu, who spoke with newsmen shortly
after the meeting attended by many party stalwarts, including the
newly-appointed Secretary of the PDP in the South West, Chief Pegba
Otemolu; Chairman of the party in Ogun State, Chief Adebayo Dayo; and
others, warned against the continued use of Obasanjo’s name by any group
within the party for selfish objectives.
He said, “I was not fighting with our father, Baba
Obasanjo. There is no way a child could fight his father but it is the
people that surround him who did not know when I was fighting Otunba
Gbenga Daniel because of Obasanjo that caused all the problems. We
fought OGD to a standstill because of Obasanjo.
“We started this struggle since 2009 and
by the time we finished with OGD, we took the structure to our father,
Obasanjo. We thought that the struggle was over, but, we later
discovered that some sycophants went to Obasanjo and cooked up a lot of
untrue stories in order for them to pave the way for their personal
interest.
“Baba Obasanjo gave me an order that we
should go and vote Olurin. Baba Obasanjo is our father and he will
always be our father; as soon as everything is okay, all of us will go
to him and work under him.
“We will work through his instructions.
He cannot throw all his troops away; we are his soldiers, his children.
He has been a General and a Field Marshall but now, he cannot continue
to be a Field Marshal. He has to hand over to some people.”
Earlier, Dayo had urged party members to
return to their various wards and mobilise supporters for the purpose
of winning the 2015 elections in the state.
The new chairman also appealed to
members of the party in the other factions and the Peoples Party of
Nigeria to return to the fold of the Ogun PDP.
“Unless those in the PPN, those with OGD
and those with Baba work together, winning the election in the state in
2015 will be problematic,” he said.
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