MANY south west leaders may reconsider their membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should the zone be excluded from the opportunity to vie for the opposition party’s national chairmanship seat.
This is according to former Senior Special Assistant to the president on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who highlighted in a statement made available to the media on Sunday that the south west remaines the only zone in the country that is yet to produce the party boss since inception in 1988.
The PDP is in the process of electing it new national leadership with a committee under the leadership of Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state currently working on a new zoning formula for it National Working Committee (NWC) offices.
It’s national convention has been scheduled to take place in Port Harcourt, Rivers state on May 21, 2016.
However, following the work of the committee, there has been speculation that the post of that national chairman has again been zoned to the north, precluding the south from contesting.
The PDP has already indicated that it’s next presidential candidate will also been selected from the north.
Despite Okupe’s advocacy for a south west national chairman for the party, a section of south west PDP politicians led by Senator Buruji Kashamu has already thrown its weight behind the emergence of a national chairman from the north.
The Kashimu group is thought to favour the current National Chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, from the north-east, to retain that position.
But Okupe is now seeing that as a betrayal of the Yoruba race and has threatened that Yoruba politicians may have no option but to pull out of that PDP if denied the chairmanship post.
According to him, “There is an embarrassing falsehood being propergated by political charlatans from the southwest and some influential collaborators in the top echelon of the PDP.
“The seed of this misrepresentation was sowed by a group of political clowns and court jesters under the leadership of Senator Buruji Kashamu, a political impostor who claims he is the leader of the party and the Yorubas in the Southwest.”
He said true Yoruba leaders in the PDP meeting in Lagos under the leadership of Chief Bode George, have however risen to the challenge and corrected the wrong impression created by Kashamu.
Okupe stated: “At that meeting, the true sons and daughters of Yoruba land in an unprecedented unity, condemned the erstwhile claim by the Yoruba traitors who went and lied to the PDP chairman, His Excellency Sen Ali Modu Sheriff, that the Yorubas do not want the chairmanship of the PDP.
“I want to state categorically here, without any fear of equivocation, that We the Yoruba’s from the Southwest, desire and demand the post of the national chairman at the next convention of the party.
“The followings are the past chairmen: Chief Solomon Lar, chief Gemade, chief Audu Ogbe, prince Ogbulafor, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, Alhaji Abubakar Baraje, Dr. Haliru Bello (Acting), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, Prince (Uche) Secondus (Acting) and Sen Sheriff.
“From the above, within the last 18 years, there have been 11 chairmen from 5 geopolitical zones. Only the Yoruba race from the south west have been precluded from this exalted office.
“In the interest of fairness, equity and Justice, it is most compelling that the Yorubas of the Southwest zone must be allowed to contest for this post at this coming National convention.
“Any attempt to do anything to the contrary, no matter the reason advanced cannot be acceptable.
“Failure for a Yoruba man to emerge as the national chairman can only mean two things:
1. That there is a pervasive and concealed hatred for the southwest in the PDP or,
2. That the PDP has very little or no regard for Yoruba interest as was evinced by the obvious cheating of the Southwest from the position of the Speaker in 2011, which was never rectified nor compensated for the whole of four years.
“The sad implication of the above is that, regrettably, many of us from the southwest may have to reconsider our membership of this great party we have helped to nurture and supported through thick and thing, a party we have loved almost more than our very existence, and the party we have served with all our natural endowment, in victory and defeat.
“If there exist any conscience, anywhere in this party, let that conscience speak now and stop the new and alien conscienceless power currently holding sway within the party hierarchy,” the statement added.