The South-West General Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Rahmon Owokoniran, has spoken on emerging issues in the party and the recent verdict by the Presidential Election Petitions Court including his relationship President Bola Tinubu who he served under as commissioner for two and a half years when he was the governor of Lagos State, adding that there is no rift between them.

He said “there is no rift between us. The party was based on principles and I observed some things were not going right, and no matter the situation you found yourself it was the boss that would always decide. However, in a democracy, the idea is for people to rub minds, share ideas and be convinced with what the final position would be, but I discovered that was not the case so I decided that it was difficult for me to operate in that kind of atmosphere. That was what happened.

“The decision to move from Alliance for Democracy to Action Congress was not taken by the stakeholders. For me, I didn’t particularly feel safe heading for the AC in such a manner because I knew that would be the end of the principles that brought us together under the banner of AD. You know AD had a historical background from the leadership of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, down to late Chief Lateef Jakande, Bola Ige and so on before it got to our own generation. When it was about time to move from AD to AC, I didn’t quite see the principles and why AC was going to displace AD, so I decided to stay back from that movement.

“I have regards for him being my former boss and at the same time our relationship came a long way. I was the director of the organisation for his campaign on his very first political outing as a senator and he was proud of the successes we attained together from that struggle and so did I. we also went through so many other contests and they were all very successful, so those memories are strong and I respect and appreciate most of the things we went through and the successes attained that time. We did not part ways on any negative premise. Our parting was basically on principles and so I still have a firm relationship with him.”

Speaking on the verdict that dismissed Atiku’s petition and the assertion of Nyesom Wike that the verdict was profound, he said, “he is trying to defend his corridor. I mean he will do everything to say we were right, they were wrong, so they won’t see all these loopholes that some of us are seeing after doing a critical analysis of what transpired. We listened the whole day and they were saying we were not accepting this because it was a pre-election matter. For God’s sake, how do you deliver justice when you have rubbished all that have been presented to you? If justice is delivered like this, that means we are talking about tradition. If our judiciary is not accommodating in a progressive way, it will be stagnant. It will be in a way of status quo and we will not move. (Story adapted from The PUNCH)

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