A statement credited to the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Mrs. Olajumoke Akinjide, that she is the “arrowhead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State”, appears to have earned her the anger of party members in the state, who have openly kicked against her leadership claim.
In a newspaper report on Friday, the minister, while dismissing the notion that she, alongside her father, Chief Richard Akinjide, SAN, were planning on dumping the PDP, restated her commitment to the party, saying: “I will never leave the PDP. The Akinjide family dynasty is loyal to President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda and the success of the party in the 2015 elections.
“My father is a founding member of the PDP and I am the arrow head of the PDP in Oyo state as the minister in an opposition state”, she was quoted as saying.
However, a party chieftain and a member of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) board, Kunle Yusuff, rejected Ms. Akinjide’s claim.
Mr. Yusuff’s statement, titled ‘We Know our Leader Politically in Oyo State’, was made available to reporters in Ibadan, Oyo State capital at the weekend.
He described the FCT minister of state’s statement as too weighty, saying, “It does not need rocket science to identify a political leader in any political setting because leadership is not by self-imposition or by mouth.
“It is the followership who chose their leader as a result of experience and the capacity displayed by such a person to be chosen and anything short of this will amount to self-delusion and political grandstanding”, he said.
Mr. Yusuff added that his party already had the Oyo PDP Elders Caucus led by the minister’s father, Richard Akinjide. He further noted that there was a meeting of the Oyo State PDP stakeholders in Abuja about two months ago where Yekeen Adeojo was unanimously appointed as the party leader in Oyo State.
“The choice of Chief Adeojo was based on his antecedents as a grassroots politician, former Deputy National Chairman of the party and a member of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT); a decision whole-heartedly supported by every strata of the party in the state including, the Minister herself, the former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala and all the elected members of the party at the National Assembly from the state”, he said.
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