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Osoba, Kuye, Bankole plan 2015 alliance

Olusegun Osoba

The crisis in the Ogun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party appeared to be taking a new dimension on Monday as leaders of three political blocs in the state met in Abeokuta to plan how to present a common front for the 2015 elections.

A former Governor of the state, Chief Olusegun Osoba, presided over a meeting where the supporters of a former Minister of Industries, Senator Jubril Martins Kuye; a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole; and the representatives of the aggrieved PDP members in the state House of Assembly, were present.

Sources, who were privy to the meeting, told our correspondent on the telephone that the meeting, which held at the Ibara GRA home of Osoba, was convened to harmonise how the groups could work together on the platform of the Social Democratic Party in the 2015 polls.

The Kuye group was represented at the meeting by a former House of Reps member, Mr. Dave Salako; two members represented the eight defecting PDP members of the House of Assembly, while the “two Egba high-profile politicians” represented the Bankole group, the source added.

The three PDP factions had protested the list of candidates submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission by the state PDP, which they alleged was compiled solely by the Chairman of Mobilisation of the PDP in the South-West, Mr. Buruji Kashamu.

A source explained that the discussions at the meeting, which started in the afternoon on Monday, had advanced and might drag late into the night.

“We have moved far into the discussion. What we are actually doing right now is the sharing of positions. Very soon, we should know how things would take shape; we have made a lot of progress,” said one of those in the meeting.

He said that against the calculations of the SDP, where Senator Akin Odunsi had been billed to fly the party’s flag as its governorship candidate, the Bankole group was negotiating for the governorship ticket for the former Speaker.

The eight PDP members of the House of Assembly led by former Deputy Speaker, Remmy Hazzan, and another lawmaker, Job Akintan, said they decided to dump the PDP for another party over the manner in which they were allegedly schemed out of the party’s candidates’ list submitted to INEC.

One of the aggrieved lawmakers in the Assembly, who spoke on the condition of anonymity with our correspondent on the telephone, wondered why the National Working Committee of the party would “hand over the fate of tens of aspirants in the party to one man” to draw up the list of candidates.

He said, “From the list they submitted to the INEC, only Kashamu drew up the list. The State Chairman of the party (Chief Bayo Dayo) relied on Kashamu’s wide connections in Abuja to conduct the governorship primary on December 8, despite a directive from the NWC, stopping the primary.”

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