The crisis of confidence rocking the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continued on Sunday as the meeting of the party’s enlarged stakeholders called by Governor Godwin Obaseki ended in a stalemate.
It was gathered that the first indication that the meeting would not make any headway arose early on Saturday as a section of the party leaders accused the loyalists of Governor Obaseki of doctoring the agreed list of leasers earlier selected to attend the meeting.
The state party Secretary, Hillary Otsu, confirmed this when he issued a statement on Saturday evening, denouncing the advertised list of invitees as being at variance with the one he drew up with the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Omorodiom Ogie.
A statement by the Special Adviser to Obaseki on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, said that the stakeholders meeting was for harmonisation ahead of the party’s National Convention slated to hold at the end of October 2021.
The statement quoted Governor Obaseki as saying that “PDP is organising its convention at the end of October and this meeting is to prepare us for the convention. There were few housekeeping issues that we needed to discuss and clear, so it was important to get everybody across the divide to have a session like this, to get feedback and also take decisions on what to do and make progress in the state.”
According to him, “naturally not all will be happy in a situation like this and we have tried to address some of the concerns of our people who feel unhappy as a result of certain things that may have happened.”
“The key issue was that of harmonisation, seeing how to bring in all parties to the table to have an expanded party in the state. The commitment obtained from them is that within a week, those areas not cleared will be dealt with and they will come back to me with their resolution,” the governor disclosed.
But Otsu in a statement said a list was compiled by himself and the SSG based on defined categories but that the list which was circulated before the meeting did not represent the full list as compiled.
“Some names were left out, despite belonging to the categories of invitees that were identified. Essentially, the final fist was not endorsed by me before it was circulated,” Otsu said.
It was gathered that some prominent leaders of the PDP including the secretary himself, Chief Dan Orbih, the National Deputy Chairman of the party, South-South and immediate past chairman of the party in the state and others did not attend the meeting.
At the meeting, Governor Obaseki was said to have told those who attended that he has taken over the party as the leader in the state and issued a one-week ultimatum to the leaders to integrate members of the party that came with him from the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2020 governorship election, in the ward and local government executives.
One of the leaders who was in the meeting said: “The governor made himself very clear that he is the leader of the party and he is taking charge. He gave a one-week deadline for all the leaders to integrate the new members into the leadership, this he said would lead to the release of the remaining commissioners to now have a full state cabinet.”
Obaseki, it would be recalled, had last week sent a list of 11 commissioner nominees to the state House of Assembly.
Not a single member of the old PDP in the state made the list.
