The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State has debunked the news making rounds that the state party has been fictionalised.
The party gave the clarification in a communique issued at the end of the party meeting which held at the party Secretariat, Molete, Ibadan on Friday.
The party, however, warned those it described as ‘dissident voices’ fanning the flames of discord to desist, saying the party leadership will no longer tolerate indiscipline and public defamation of its image.
Recall that about two weeks ago, a group of aggrieved members of the party recently declared itself as a faction, assuring Governor Seyi Makinde that its members would recover the party from him in the 2023 elections.
The group, led by former deputy governor Hazeem Gbolarumi, former House of Representatives Majority Leader, Hon. Mulikat Akande-Adeola, Hon. Ajibola Muraina, Engr. Femi Babalola and Chief Nureni Akanbi, among others, accused the governor of using members of other parties to run the PDP and government.
They also accused the governor of “high-handedness, recalcitrant attitude and lack of leadership in the party”, after a stakeholders’ meeting held at Jogor Centre, Ibadan.
The factional group, with members drawn from the 33 local governments of the state, said it had given up on Makinde and his style of leadership, stressing that it was already preparing to wrest the party from his grip in the next general elections.
But, the party leadership after the Friday meeting affirmed and identified with the leadership of Governor Makinde as the authentic leader in the state and the South-West zone.
The communique reads in part, “We also use this medium to announce that our position in Oyo State PDP is in alignment with the position of our amiable governor and leader of our party in the South-West, Engineer Seyi Makinde on the areas of security of lives and properties.
“We enjoin all the relevant security agencies to justify the good disposition of the governor towards them and see to curbing crimes in our State.
“We want to implore dissident voices that are fanning the flames of discord in our party to desist from such acts as the entire leadership of the party will henceforth not tolerate indiscipline and public defamation of the image of our party and the government by some sectarian elements in the party.
“We want to make it unequivocally clear that our party is not divided and we do not have factions. We are united and the party is becoming stronger daily under the leadership of Alhaji Omokunmi Mustapha and Governor Seyi Makinde.
“We also wish to state that the winning team, the executives that won elections i.e the present set of PDP Executives are united and we are running the party according to the provisions of the constitution of our party.
“We say that those calling for the dissolution of the State Party Executives are ill-advised, misinformed, insensitive, forgetful and deliberately malicious. The state party leadership is fine and we are solidly behind our hardworking governor.
“It is important to remind those who are enemies of success that when these current set of Oyo State PDP Executives came on board, there was no single national/ state House of Assembly member neither was the party winning elections.
“The current set of executives has led the party to win gubernatorial election, a senatorial seat, four house of representative seats, 26 out of 32 houses of assembly members and also conducted, monitored and oversaw the LG elections where the party won all the 33 Chairmanship seats and 90 percent of the councillorship positions. It is sheer wickedness to call for the dissolution of a winning team.
“We want to also implore the entire populace of Oyo State to continue to support the governor of Oyo State in his quest to restore our state back to the pacesetting pedestals.
The governor has done well in the past two years of his administration despite that the fact that we inherited a state that was badly battered, almost destroyed and our funds and resources seriously injured by the inhumane, wicked, unkind, unfair and the corrupt government of the APC and their failed leaders.
“We find it rather laughable and preposterous that majority of the so called, self-acclaimed and passive leaders who are defaming, disparaging and embarrassing the hard earned victory of the party today were caught in bed with the opposition parties severally before the last general elections.
How do you describe PDP leaders who publicly campaigned for candidates of other parties and even mobilized their followers to vote for ADP/ADC and APC candidates on the Election Day?
“Many of these leaders who did not vote nor supported the candidates of the party at the national assembly and presidential elections forgot that the major negotiating data that birthed the coalition that made the gubernatorial victory easy for us was the results and the achievements of the party at the first elections which many of them worked against the interest of the party.
“It is highly imperative to note that one of the so called leaders who even signed the poor communique at the failed Jogor centre meeting sued the party up to the Supreme Court. At what point did He actually become a true party man?
“We want to inform the good people of Oyo State that many of these misguided leaders have left us in soul and spirit.
How else do you explain the characters of PDP Leaders who hosted many figures from the opposition in their houses? We have very well publicised images of the visit of Dr Fola Akinosun, Sen. Soji Akanbi and others few days/hours before the National Assembly elections and many of them have also hosted the gubernatorial candidate of APC in the 2019 election, Chief Adebayo Adelabu.
“The Senator representing Oyo Central Senatorial District, Senator Teslim Folarin, and other ambitious opposition figures and we are not unaware of several nocturnal meetings of some of these so-called leaders with leading top-notch figures from the APC like Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Their game plan is to frustrate, truncate and destroy the relative peace we currently enjoy in Oyo State PDP and mortgage our hardworking governor for their selfish agenda of handing over Oyo State into the hands of the wicked, inhumane and high handed APC.
“We want to thank the good people of Oyo State who actually separated the wheat from the chaff in the current situation in Oyo State.
“We are certain and we want to assure the good people of Oyo State that our governor is working assiduously with every relevant persons, institutions, agencies and stakeholders to ensure that Ibarapa, Oke-Ogun, Ogbomoso, Oyo and Ibadan is more secured and conducive for all.
“We want to say it with all confidence that under Governor Seyi Makinde and PDP, a better Oyo State is assured.”
The meeting was attended by members of the party’s state executive council, lawmakers from the National Assembly, state assembly, council bosses among others.