Ondo: Why PDP lost to APC – Kashamu

The senator representing Ogun East in the National Assembly, Buruji Kashamu has explained why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the just concluded governorship election in Ondo State.

In a statement on Sunday, the PDP chieftain who was recently suspended by the Ogun State Chapter of the party, attributed the party’s loss to the refusal of the state governor Olusegun Mimiko not to choose his successor from the same senatorial district with him.

The governor and the PDP candidate in the election, Eyitayo Jegede, both hail from Ondo Central.

“We told Governor Mimiko that after eight years, the good people of Ondo State would resist the injustice of producing a successor from the same senatorial district where he hails from. It is not that Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) is not a good material. He is urbane, intelligent and smart. He would have probably won had he come from any other senatorial zone than Mimiko’s.

“We told Mimiko that the people would not take anything that would look like a third term for him and his senatorial district. He would not listen. Ever slippery and sly, Mimiko turned deaf ears to wise counsel, just like he turned his back on all those who helped him to power”, he said.

The senator also lambasted Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee over the statement credited to the party spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye, where he threatened to sanction the former national chairman of the party Ali Modu Sheriff and his loyalists.

He advised that no one should mistake the verdicts of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court over the Ondo State PDP governorship ticket as their pronouncements on the party national leadership crisis.

He said that the gale of sanction in Osun, Ogun and Kwara states, would further exacerbate the crisis and lead to a gale of suspension and expulsion, adding, “the truth is: such a move will further undermine the party and its leadership.

“Is anyone saying that if tomorrow the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court rule in favour of any of the national leaders, he should send all those in support of the other out of the party when all the 36 states are polarised along the lines of Senators Sheriff and Makarfi? No. That is not the spirit of party politics and participatory democracy.”

With PDP’s defeat in the just concluded election, it means that the party will be in control of 11 states of the Federation when Mimiko leaves office in February next year, while APC takes charge of 24 states and APGA one.