• Kabiru Turaki group flays Akpabio’s ‘Kill PDP’ remarks
• Iyabo Obasanjo says PDP has no presidential candidate </strong

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State has reclaimed its state secretariat at Molete, Ibadan, amid heavy security, declaring that it had resumed administrative activities from the office.

Addressing journalists shortly after taking possession of the secretariat, the state Chairman of the party, Prof. Rahman Akinosho, insisted that there was only one legally recognised leadership of the party.

e professor dismissed claims of factionalisation, maintaining that the executive under his leadership remained the authentic leadership recognised by law.

“I am Professor Raman Akinosho. I can show you the state PDP executives. We are the authentic state leadership,” he said.

Akinosho said the issue of the party’s leadership had already been settled by the Supreme Court, stressing that there was no faction within the PDP.

Speaking on the recovery of the secretariat, Akinosho said the party deliberately exercised restraint to avoid violence and only moved to reclaim the office after following due process.

MEANWHILE, the Turaki-led group in the PDP yesterday launched a scathing attack on the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, over comments allegedly urging the demise of the opposition party, declaring that it regretted providing him the platform through which he rose to political prominence.

The group also insisted that, despite its lingering internal crisis, it remained a viable political force and would field candidates for all elective offices in the 2027 General Elections.

The declarations were made at a stakeholders’ meeting convened in Abuja by the Kabiru Tanimu Turaki-led Interim National Working Committee (INWC), which brought together members of the PDP State Chairmen’s Forum, governorship candidates and other party stakeholders to deliberate on the implications of the recent court judgment affecting the party and chart a path towards rebuilding its structures.

Former Chairman of the PDP State Chairmen’s Forum, Tony Aziegbemi, condemned remarks attributed to Akpabio in which the Senate President allegedly said he did not know the PDP still existed until a senator was declared winner of an election, adding, “Make sure that you kill it.”

Describing the comment as unfortunate and unbecoming of the nation’s number three citizen, Aziegbemi reminded Akpabio that virtually every major political office he occupied before joining the All Progressives Congress (APC) was attained on the platform of the PDP.

Earlier, Chairman of the Interim National Working Committee, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, dismissed suggestions that the PDP was on the verge of collapse, insisting that no individual or political group possessed the capacity to destroy the party.

According to him, the PDP had survived similar crises in the past, including the leadership dispute that culminated in the Ahmed Makarfi-led caretaker committee in 2016, and would again overcome its present difficulties.

The former Minister of Special Duties accused forces aligned with the ruling APC of exploiting divisions within opposition parties to weaken democratic competition, arguing that many of the crises confronting opposition platforms bore the governing party’s imprint.

Turaki explained that the stakeholders’ meeting was convened to examine the legal implications of the court ruling and to adopt measures to reposition the PDP ahead of the 2027 electoral contest.

IN another development, former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s daughter and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senatorial candidate in Ogun State, Iyabo Obasanjo, has said that, as far as she is concerned, the party has no presidential candidate, insisting her campaign is focused solely on winning in Ogun State.

Speaking during an interview, Obasanjo said she could not recall being introduced to the PDP’s presidential candidate at a recent National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting and therefore had no reason to campaign for someone she did not know.

The former Ogun State senator explained that her priority remained the state’s governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and House of Assembly elections rather than the party’s national campaign.

“I think, it’s not important, to be honest, if we have a presidential candidate or not because the focus of our campaign in Ogun State is Ogun State. I am not in this race as part of the national campaign; we are focused on our state,” she added.