6th January, 2011
A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (
The Chairman of the PDP faction, Chief Samuel Adedayo, who disclosed this in Ilorin on Wednesday, declared that the founding members of the party would not allow any individual to destroy PDP in the state.
He explained that they would ensure that due process was followed in all their activities and the outcome shall be forwarded to the national secretariat of the party for ratification.
Speaking on the defection of Dr. Olusola Saraki to Allied Congress Party Of Nigeria, ANCP, another leader of the PDP faction, Alhaji Salman Alada, who was the Secretary to the Kwara state government in the Second Republic maintained that Saraki was not a card carrying member of the party.
According to him, “I would urge you members of the fourth estate of the realm to ask him, for the education of the public to clarify how a person can decamp from an organization of which he or she is not a member.
“In 2002, we were persuaded to accept Saraki and his group into our fold as a face saving measure for him. The majority of our members had misgivings and they raised objections based on Saraki’s political antecedents but the powers-that-be then in Abuja manipulated things in his favour.
“It is significant to recall that our efforts earlier on in 1999 at mobilizing Kwarans for PDP was reflected in the results of the elections of that year where PDP polled 37percent of the vote with Saraki and Lawal’s All Peoples Party (APP) polling 42percent. How can anyone now say that the PDP was obscure in Kwara State before the coming of Dr Saraki’s followers in 2002?â€
Reacting to the development, the Speacial Adviser to Governor Bukola Saraki on Political Affairs, Alhaji Suleiman Kayode Yusuf, insisted that there is still one PDP in the state.
Yusuf in statement made available to newsmen in Ilorin yesterday said that “the attention of the Kwara State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been drawn to a purported press conference held by a faceless group claiming to be the founding members of PDP in the State.
“The leadership of the PDP in the state wishes to use this opportunity to reaffirm that there is only one PDP structure that is constitutionally recognised by the National Executive Committee of the party in the state.
“Also, only party primaries organised by our party as stipulated by the National leadership of our party is legal. In the last 10 years, members of the PDP in the state have been working together as one family providing purposeful leadership and good governance under the able leadership of Governor Bukola Saraki, CON.â€
— Stephen Oni/Ilorin
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