Only S'West can replace Oyinlola --Ogun PDP

The Chairman and Secretary of the Ogun State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Adebayo Dayo and Alhaji Semiu Shodipo respectively, have petitioned the national leadership of the party, saying election must not be conducted to fill the vacant office of its national secretary.

They said it was wrong for the party to contemplate conducting zonal congress, with the aim of beginning a process that would lead to the election of a replacement for Oyinlola.

The former governor of Osun State vacated office as a result of a Federal High Court judgment, which ruled that the zonal congress that nominated him for the position was illegal.

Both Dayo and Shodipo said the conduct of the proposed zonal congress would be contrary to the court pronouncement on the matter.

This was contained in their petition sent to the Chairman of the National Convention of the party, Prof. Jerry Gana, a copy of which was made available to journalists in Abuja on Thursday.

Apart from Gana, copies of the petition was sent to the committee's  deputy chairman, Senator Ike Ekweremadu; Chairman of Board of Trustees of the party, Chief  Tony Anenih; and President Goodluck Jonathan; and National Chairman of the party, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, among others.

The petition was written by the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the suit Number FHC/ABJ/504/2012 in which judgment was delivered by the Federal High Court removing Oyinlola as the National Secretary, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede.

The duo warned that the planned July 11 convention in the zone aimed at electing Oyinlola's replacement must be put on hold.

According to the two officers of the party, they said the court judgment allowed the zone to send a replacement for Oyinlola as the secretary and not to elect another person.

The letter read in part, "However, our attention has been drawn to the advertisements placed concerning the planned Special Convention and certain statements of some of the Party's elders, which show that there is the erroneous and dangerous belief that the office of National Secretary is one of the offices to be filled by election at the planned Special Convention."

They contended that the INEC report on which basis the affected members of the NWC resigned, excluded the election of the National Secretary at the last convention from its findings.

This, they said, meant that there was no controversy about the validity of the election conducted at the last National Convention of the PDP in March 2012 into the office of National Secretary.

"On this basis alone any argument that there ought to be an election to that office at the special convention should be discarded as untenable," they argued.



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