The fragile peace in the South-West chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) might be heading for the rocks, if recent protestations and opposition to a recent position by leaders of the party in the region that the national chairmanship post of the party should remain in the North are to go by.

The Senator representing Ogun East, Senator Buruji Kashamu, had, at the wekeend, clarified that the proposal that the national chairmanship of the party should remain in the North was not his opinion but that of the delegation that visited the party’s national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and members of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), in Abuja on Thursday.

Kashamu said he was only a part of the delegation.

The senator, who made this clarification on Saturday while reacting to various reports and accounts about the visit, said: “On our proposal that the national chairmanship of the party should remain in the North, I wish to state that it was the opinion of the delegation.

“We were and are still of the view that given the strong presence of the PDP in the South, with 10 governors out of 17 governors in the South and just two governors in the 19 states in the North, it would make more sense to leave the national chairmanship of the party in the North so as not to be branded a regional party,” he said.

However, a group identified as the Lagos Collectives (LC), led by Professor Tejumade Akitoye-Rhodes, denounced the position of the delegation led by Kashamu, which claimed that the zone was not interested in presenting anybody for the position of national chairmanship of the party, describing such position as totally unacceptable, unfair, unjust and even destabilising to the region.

Kashamu, however, said the view of the delegation did not foreclose any other opinion or suggestion, noting that if some other persons had any other idea, they were at liberty to push it.

“Our view does not foreclose any other opinion or suggestion. If some other persons have any other idea, they are at liberty to push it. At the end of the day, it is either superior argument wins or we go to the convention.

“For us, as true party men, whatever is best for our party and majority of the stakeholders is all we want,” he said.

But the Lagos Collectives, in a statement entitled, “Mr. Chairman: Beware of the Ides of March!,” frowned on the declaration of the Kashamu delegation, saying he was not qualified to speak on behalf of the South-West PDP.

Meanwhile, a chieftain of the PDP in Oyo State, Alhaji Adebisi Olopoenia, has hinted that normalcy might not return any time soon to the state’s chapter of the party, if the present executives are not shown the exit door.

Olopoenia, while speaking with Sunday Tribune in Ibadan, on Saturday, noted that as much as he had confidence in the decision of the leadership of the party at the national level, which empowered all state executives of the party to continue in office in order to work with the national chairman of the party till the end of his tenure, it had became imperative to urgently hold a state congress in Oyo State in order to usher in new executives that will steer the ship of the party to an enviable destination.

“As far as Oyo State is concerned, the decision of the party cannot, in any way, yield a positive result. This is because the excos have not been functioning effectively well. All the party activities in Oyo State are decided by only one person whom the excos believe in,” he said. (Sunday Tribune)

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