Lagos PDP will find bearing after state congresses – Chieftain

A Chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, says the state chapter of the party will find its bearing after the yet-to-be-fixed state congresses.

Pearse, a former member of the Atiku Abubakar 2023 Presidential Campaign Council, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lagos.

NAN reports that the PDP has been faced with some internal crises among the party leaders and state executives, which led to the poor outing in the 2023 general elections.

Pearse revealed that the state leaders had inaugurated three different committees to help the party find its way ahead of the 2027 general elections.

According to him, the Lagos State PDP is now being run by the three committees to bring members together.

“The PDP congresses will begin soon and this will make the party find its way. The status quo is intact in the PDP.

“The PDP is now running through three committees that were formed about three or four months ago,” he said.

Pearse listed the committees to include the Disciplinary Committee under the leadership of Mr Tai Benedict, the state deputy chairman of the party and the Reconciliation Committee under the chairmanship of Alhaji Muritala Ashorobi, a former PDP state chairman.

Pearse added that the Finance Committee had been put under his leadership.

The chieftain said that despite the infighting within the party, the PDP’s structure in the state was still intact across electoral wards and local government areas.

Pearse said that all the 20 PDP local government chairmen and ward leaders were within the party’s main structure.

Speaking on PDP’s poor performance in the 2023 governorship election, Pearse blamed the development on the party’s national leadership and the gubernatorial candidate, who he said failed to carry elders along.

“That was an exceptional election in the history of PDP. We have never had it so bad where our governorship candidate scored five per cent and the presidential candidates scored six per cent.

“What happened in the last election was that going to the primaries, the national leadership made the mistake of handing over the selection of delegates to whom they perceived as the leader of the election at that point in time.

“The national leadership handed over the selection of delegates to the party’s Governorship Candidate, Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor).

“However, Jandor had just come into the PDP. It was about six or seven months when he got the opportunity to select delegates to the primary election of the PDP in Lagos State.

“So the party was in disarray; that was what happened in 2023. The structure of the party at the ward and the local government areas did not work because the structure had rebelled against imposition. That is what happened,” Pearse recounted.