For those who are conversant with developments in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Southwest, they would agree with me that the future is being seriously tested.
This is because certain interests are averse to normal order and in their uncharismatic manner, want to throw PDP in the zone into a terrible situation.
Looking at the issues clearly, it is clear that the current crisis in the Southwest PDP is needless. It is an established fact that Governor Seyi Makinde by the virtue of being the only Governor on the platform of the party in the zone is the leader. Why ex-Governor Ayodele Fayose is resistant to this reality is something that worries every lovers of the party.
Being a leader calls for decorum and to a larger extent, Governor Makinde has shown he is deserving. Even in the face of provocation, Governor Makinde ability to maintain caution and refusal to be dragged into needless altercation is a great character that is required in building Southwest PDP.
The same thing cannot be said of Gov Fayose, who has shown overtime to be uncouth and abuse leaders at will. His hurl of insults and abuses on Chief Olabode George and ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo is well known in public circle.
Even discomforting is the ease with which Gov Fayose turns against PDP, hiding under flimsy excuse to work against it. The experience of working against PDP in Ekiti State in 2009 that led to the removal of Engineer Segun Oni is still fresh in the mind of PDP faithfuls. In 2019, he did not only caused PDP failure in Ekiti State, it is on record that he campaigned against a PDP Senator, Abiodun Olujimi, but God showed he’s above man to award the woman the seat.
And recently, he threatened to work against Governor Makinde and what any committed PDP person should ask is, what exactly is Fayose’s interest? Is he really interested in the growth of Southwest PDP because his past actions and utterances cast big doubt on his loyalty to PDP.
And when you consider that he is fond of praising Bola Tinubu and severally, claimed the former Lagos Governor, who remain the stumbling block to the growth of Southwest PDP, is his leader, then you begin to give serious thought to insinuations that he is deliberately stoking crisis in PDP to weaken it in order to serve the interest of the APC.
This and more are reasons why I’m standing with Governor Makinde in his quest to reposition Southwest PDP. By every standard, Governor Makinde is better than Fayose and as such, anyone interested in the progress of PDP in Southwest should queue behind him .
When Fayose was the only Governor of PDP in Southwest, he deliberately pushed out the chance for the region to produce the National Chairman of PDP and colluded with the South-South to have it. He did that just to ensure nobody is above him or his leader in the region. But Governor Makinde is much committed to ensuring that Southwest is not shortchanged, and that is exactly the leader we need at a critical time like this.
Even when Fayose move from newspaper pages to television screen to dispute the leadership of Governor Makinde in Southwest PDP, Governor Makinde kept his calm and at no time did he said Fayose isn’t a leader of the party in the zone. Fayose has been going up and down, pushing all sort of rhetorics to widen fault gaps and any discerning party faithfuls who can read between the lines will agree with me that such moves does not bode well for the party.
At this point, I will appeal to Gov Fayose to give peace a chance and drop the plot to plunge Southwest PDP into needless crisis. It is also necessary for Fayose’s followers to tell him the truth and talk him out of the damaging move to stall Southwest PDP. If not anything, Gov Fayose should consider that he could be Governor twice on the platform of PDP and doing anything to destroy the platform will be a sign of ingratitude.
For every PDP faithful in the Southwest, Governor Makinde is the best chance to get the party on track and give the All Progressives Congress (APC) a good fight in electoral contest, and we must all rally round him to save our party.
I stand firm with Governor Makinde and I expect every committed party faithfuls to do same.
Segun Adewale(AEROLAND)