A renowned chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Okitipupa Constituency 2 has rued what they claim is an attempt to circumvent the Party’s plans to win the next gubernatorial election in Ondo State. In a statement made available to newsmen on Tuesday morning in Okitipupa, Mr. Banjo Akinsuroju, a grassroot mobilizer of the Party alleged manipulation of the party’s Ward Congress held across the State yesterday by Dr. Eddy Olafeso, the former South West Chairman of the Party and his cronies.
“They are at it again. They want the party to fail again, and we must not allow these people to thwart the party’s efforts to win again. Please, the party leaders at the local government and state level must come to our aid and rescue us from all these inordinate saboteurs quickly, before they do another damage again. What do we call this, a ward congress or family or associates congress? In my ward (Ward 1, Okitipupa) the congress time and the venue were not announced, even though the ward meeting has a designated place of meeting as agreed by the ward members, these people refused to go there but chose to go to Ward Chairman Morocco’s residence.” the statement read.
While alleging nepotism and imposition, he said “As if that was not bad enough, they went ahead to share the three delegates among the master, servant and puppet. Oga Eddy took one, and he gave one to Olajide Akinnusi (Oga Eddy’s PA) as if he’s the permanent delegate of the ward because he always gets to be a delegate in every election. What happened to other members? Same Olajide Akinnusi has never delivered his polling unit at Jokodo to the Party, yet he is often rewarded with delegate. The last slot was given to Morocco, who gave it to his son.”
“Likewise in Ward 2 Okitipupa, Hon Ojomo gave the delegate slot to his wife, a woman who will not come to the polling unit at Technical College, Idepe to vote for once. In the last election, this Hon. Ojomo came to the polling unit without his voter’s card until he was challenged by a woman before he went back home to pick up his voter’s card. These are the kinds of people sharing the delegates to decide who becomes the candidate of the party leaving behind the real party’s foot-soldiers.
Is this the way we want to win an election? Should we allow this selfish attitude of our failed leaders to destroy the party beyond repairs?” he added.
“In Ward 1 Okitipupa, the members are disgruntled because the congress was done in bad faith. Why the house of Morocco and not the designated point of convergence for the Ward? These are the set of people who don’t care if we win elections or not. They only care about what they will get from the aspirants. We know them and we know their characters. Their target is to milk the aspirants dry. This was how they shattered the efforts of the party during the last election and we failed woefully because of their selfish interests. They’ve started again, with the ward’s congress and we need to watch it and put our eyes on them to know how to tackle them before it is too late.”
