A group, the Concerned Elders of Southwest of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the National Chairman of the party Mr Uche Secondus to distance the party from moves to destroy the PDP in the Southwest.
The group in a statement made available to Sunrise Newspaper on Tuesday, carpeted the purported position of the Southwest Zonal Caretaker Committee on how to move the party forward in the zone.
The petition which was signed by Concerned Elders and Leaders of the Southwest, a group led by the former National Deputy Chairman of the party Chief Olabode George insisted that the Caretaker Committee’s report rankles with malice, hatred, untidy and reckless, asking the National leadership of the party to disregard the report which is capable of destroying the PDP in the Southwest.
The statement reads:
We read with dismay and alarm the alleged communiqué written by the Southwest Zonal Caretaker Executive Committee which was a purported response to the Elders meeting summoned on Friday June 19th by Governor Seyi Makinde in the Government House, Agodi, Ibadan.
The Communique rankles with untidy, reckless dripping of a venomous pen. It pours with anger, malice, hate, stripped of the Ọmọluabi moral of our Yoruba heritage.
The Caretaker Committee, in uncouth, breathless oafish diatribe describes Governor Seyi Makinde and the leading lights of the Yoruba leadership as agents of impunity and abettors of anarchy simply because they attended a meeting whose purpose is to reclaim the dignity of our people and restore confidence, fairness, equity to our zone without the intrusion of extraneous forces.
But the Caretaker Committee would have none of this. Their fixity is about personal interest, the crude protection of an unearned partisan relevance, the continuous diminution of the esteem of our people, the crass trafficking in mercenary selfishness, the odious resolve on latching to the bidding of those who harbor secretive agenda at the detriment of the fortunes of Yorubaland.
Governor Seyi Makinde remains the undisputed political leader of the Southwest today. That is a settled affirmation. His position as the only PDP Governor in our zone gives him this privilege. His generous financing of the activities of the six states and the zonal structure itself doubly assures his leadership primacy.
He is a meek, humble, thoroughbred Ọmọluabi who wishes the best for the Southwest and the party at large. His humility should not be taken for weakness.
Yi yo Ẹkun, bi ti ojo kọ.
The outrageous inference, the unthoughtful instigation that Governor Makinde committed an act of impunity and that his action may cause anarchy in the Southwest is impudent, gratuitous, disturbing, vile, vindictive and outrightly unjust.
This is hardly how to bring amity, honor, truth and decency to the fold of our party in the Southwest.
Mr Chairman, it is obvious to us now that the brazen rudeness of a mere Caretaker Committee whose tenure is transient, whose composition and legality are dubious, whose acceptability is borne upon the pleadings and the compromised peace of the round table – is apparently prodded by an unstable personality well known for his crude theatrics and penchant for rabble-rousing.
In truth, this flighty character who held a secret meeting with some chairmen barely some hours before the one summoned by Governor Makinde, has proven himself to be a puzzling provocateur angling for a desperate grab at power.
After losing his state and later shamelessly cavorted with the same opposition, he was eventually discarded and he crawled back to our fold without remorse.
Alas, this character keeps forgetting he is a yesterday’s man whose sun has set, whose former prominence has been displaced by a new order.
Our yesterday’s man is deliberately bent on disruptive, rivening, fractious totality. He seems happiest in sowing discord, maneuvering in dark conspiracies, provoking divisions, instigating turmoil, envious of the subsisting power.
But he has failed. Like his minions at the zonal structure who he has recruited to smear and antagonize Governor Makinde and the Southwest leaders in reckless indiscipline, they have jointly pitted themselves against a cul de sac.
We emphasize for the umpteenth time that the national leadership of our party must align with the majority of the PDP members in the Southwest who ask for justice, equity and fair play in the distribution of elective offices.
This is not a hard task. The Southwest has three sub-zones: Ondo-Ekiti, Osun-Oyo, Lagos -Ogun. There are equally three positions for the same zone in the National Working Committee. We do not need a mathematician to distribute these positions.
The current distortion where Ondo -Ekiti alone occupies two positions at the detriment of the other sub-zones is the very wrong that we seek to rectify.
As the party prepares for the upcoming gubernatorial election in Ondo state, the National Working Committee of our party should reflect carefully on the nuances, the orchestrated maneuverings of people with veiled, hidden mission that may negatively affect our fortunes at the polls.
The voters are watching. Our chances are bright. We must not destroy this great opportunity by our action or inaction.
In this wise, we note that the Southwest Caretaker Committee has become heavily compromised, stripped of balanced, leadership neutrality, weighed down by the incredible burden of vice and corruption, disruptive of the general harmony across our land.
Truth be told: The Southwest Caretaker Committee is now the hot-bed of greed and avarice. It has outlived its usefulness. We urge that this diseased outfit should be exorcised, dismantled in its entirety for a new , more polished, more productive and more progressive set of morally upright leadership.
A proper Caretaker Committee which should comprise one representative per state should be put in place in consultation with the political leader and the stakeholders in the zone. This new Caretaker Committee must reflect the will, the aspirations and the collective integrity of our people as it prepares itself for the Congress that will midwife the substantive, constitutionally empowered Southwest Executive Committee. Nothing else will be deemed as fitting and morally and legally appropriate. This is our submission.
- Concerned Elders and Stakeholders in the Southwest.
