Ladoja playing god with Oyo PDP crisis, says Agboola

Olufemi Atoyebi, Ibadan

A former Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate and a Peoples Democratic Party chief in Oyo State, Hosea Agboola, on Monday called on former governor Rashidi Ladoja to accept the resolution of the National Executive Council of the PDP in finding a solution to the crisis in the party in the state.

Speaking on a radio programme monitored by our correspondent in Ibadan, Agboola described Ladoja’s threat to leave the party because of the harmonisation of the state executives by the NEC as playing god, while also saying that effort to resolve all differences in the party was yielding results.

While reacting to Ladoja’s comment that he (Agboola) had no strong following in the party, the former Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate called on the former governor to review his political tactics.

He said, “In 2007, Ladoja, who was an incumbent governor sponsored a governorship candidate against Adebayo Alao-Akala of the PDP but the latter won. In 2011, Ladoja contested against Governor Abiola Ajimobi and lost.

“In the 2015 election, a number of the PDP chiefs dumped the PDP and worked for Ladoja and his Accord Party but they all lost to Ajimobi again. What we are saying is that we need to harmonise the state party executive to give room for a level playing field for all the aspirants. The threat to leave the party won’t do anybody any good and Ladoja is playing god with the PDP crisis.”

Meanwhile, another chieftain of the party in the state, Seyi Makinde, said in a statement issued by Dotun Oyelade on his behalf that the party would come out of the present crisis better.

“The PDP will wax stronger after the initial crisis over harmonisation that appears to divide the party,” he said.

Makinde said rather than lose members, people from other parties would join the PDP, while also appealing to members to desist from comments capable of creating more problems for the party.

The statement said, “We laud the role being played in the past few days by party leaders including Ladoja, Jacob Adetoro, Agboola, Mulikat Adeola-Akande and particularly members of the National Executive Council in resolving the matter. It is important to reach a compromise in moving the party forward and away from the current distraction.”

But a group within the PDP in Oyo State, Political Renewal Forum, called on a Ladoja to caution his loyalists in the state House of Assembly against misinforming the people and disrespecting a former Minister of Mines and Power, Elder Wole Oyelese.

In a statement signed by its president, Sola Oyerinde, on Monday, the group said its attention was drawn to a release by Ladoja loyalists in the assembly, which it considered derogatory and false.

The statement said, “As much as we would have loved to let things be for now, the deliberate misinformation contained in the statement from Ladoja loyalists made us feel the urge to set the records straight.

“There is no doubt that the so-called House of Assembly members who authored the release are apparently too young to know the true history of the PDP in Oyo State, otherwise they would not have taken their path of perdition.

“Oyelese donated the first office to be used by the PDP in the state at Oke-Foko area of Ibadan before the party moved to the Oke-Bola office. They are too young to know that while Oyelese was contesting elections way back in 1978 under the zero party arrangement and 1983 on the platform of the UPN, Ladoja was not anywhere near politics.

“The upstarts referred Elder Oyelese to what they considered as Chief Ladoja’s great political achievement of producing House of Assembly and House of  Representatives’ members in 2011 and 2015 and asking for how many councillors Oyelese has produced.

“We make bold to say that we have tried without success to find any other person in Oyo State who has Oyelese’s political record. He has produced lawmakers as far back as 2003 and was the undisputed number two man to the late Lamidi Adedibu in the election that produced Ladoja as governor in 2003.”

The group said Oyelese was among Nigerians who brokered the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Babagana Kingibe, while also advising Ladoja not to allow “some ill-informed and inexperienced political praise-singers to push him into a political abyss.”

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