New Ogun PDP executives take over secretariat, faction threatens suit

• BOT chair cautions aspirants against plunging party into crisis

The newly elected executives of the Ogun State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday took over the party’s secretariat at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta from the Dayo Bayo faction which stayed put in defiance to a directive from the headquarters.

The national leadership had two months ago set up a caretaker committee to take charge of the party and ordered the other faction to vacate the complex.
The Bayo group was elected in May 2015 and has since refused to relinquish office.

But yesterday, the new state executives, led by Sikirulai Ogundele, with full security compliments, took over the complex. They were elected at last weekend’s state congress.Ogundele, however, alleged that about N5 million secretarial equipment, including “computers, fans among others have been vandalised and stolen.”

Reacting, the Dayo faction described the action as “invasion”, vowing to challenge it in court.Its Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Adeniji, said: “We are going to challenge this. It can’t stand.”

Ogundele asserted: “We have only come to take over the PDP property in accordance to the directive we got from Abuja that, every property of the party which is mainly the secretariat, must be taken care of and we have just come to peacefully take it over.”

In a related development, the chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees (BOT), Senator Walid Jibrin, has condemned the recent sectional meeting held by three South West trustees vying for the national chairmanship of the PDP.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Abuja, he cautioned the aspirants against plunging the party into another round of crisis.Jibrin said the meeting was null and void, stressing that its outcome was not binding on the conduct of the convention holding next month.