The crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, Ondo State chapter took a new turn on Sunday November, 16.
The aspirants in the state have threatened to work against the success of the party in 2015.
The angry aspirants are those contesting for seats in the state House of Assembly, Federal House of Representatives and the Senate.
Punch Newspaper reported that the Chairman, Ondo PDP Aspirants Forum, Femi Adekanmbi, Ondo PDP Aspirants Forum who is also a contestant for the House of Representatives, told journalists in Abuja that the party should be allowed to conduct its primaries without hiccups if it must be successful in the forthcoming elections.
Adekanmbi, who spoke on behalf of all the aspirants, said some senior party officials had been acting against the rules of the party’s constitution, warning that the PDP would lose in 2015 if its national body fails to intervene promptly.
He said, “We want the public to be informed of the impending loss of the PDP in Ondo State. When the result will be out on February 15, 2015 showing the loss of the PDP in Ondo, nobody should be surprised.
“The people of Ondo State are ready to take their destiny in their hands; you cannot handpick and impose on us. This is to sensitise Nigerians because there is going to be protest vote against the PDP in the 2015 elections.”
Adekanmbi also reported that the membership of the party by the Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko, is not legitimate because he did not register in the party according to the party’s constitution.
He said, “Governor Olusegun Mimiko joined the party on October 2, 2014 and that was when the PDP congress was about 29 days away. Under the party’s constitution, Chapter 2, Section 8, subsection 1 to 11, a person that joins PDP within 30 days before congress cannot partake in the congress.
“This is because the party’s register would have been closed a month before congress. The implication is that the people who came to the party with Mimiko are not members of the PDP, including the governor, because they have not been registered according to our constitution.”
He explained that a panel set up by national body of the party disqualified original members from contesting after they had spent huge sums of money on their campaigns.
The Adekambi Ondo said, “House of Assembly aspirants bought forms for N1.25m; House of Representatives, N2.5m and Senate for N4m. After buying these forms, a screening panel was constituted by the national PDP and was sent to Ondo State. When the panel got to Ondo, it disqualified all the original PDP members and approved people who are just joining the party. Now, that is the problem.
“The panel was hijacked and they took it to Government House instead of the PDP secretariat and wrote disqualification certificates for our members and held a meeting and signed our mandates away.
“We want to totally disagree with the meeting that was chaired by the Senate President, David Mark, with Dr. Mimiko and some of our so-called leaders on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa.”
He stated that no one had the right to prohibit the party’s executive council in the state, local governments and wards.
“We are pursuing our case in court to get to a logical conclusion. We have notified INEC through the court why they must not recognise the Labour Party aspirants who claim to be PDP members in Ondo,” Adekanmbi said.
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