Ahead of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Southwest regional congress, the Lagos State chapter of the party has endorsed Eddy Olafeso, immediate past national vice chairman South-West, and his executive committee members, for a second term.
The delegates made their position known at the weekend when Olafeso, Bunmi Jenyo, immediate past regional secretary and other members of the exco visited the Lagos State delegates to solicit their votes at the forthcoming congress.
Dignitaries from across the region who were in attendance, included Bimbo Ogunkelu, Sunday Adekunle, secretary of Ogun State chapter of the party, and other chieftains from Osun, Ogun and Ekiti States.
Deji Doherty, chairman of the party in Lagos, while confirming the decision of 90 percent of the Lagos State delegates to vote for Olafeso and his team, stressed that the decision was taken based on the track record of the leaders.
He maintained that PDP had always followed democratic norms, pointing out that as delegates to the congress, only Olafeso and his team sought their support and considering their contributions in their first two years in office where they liberated Lagos from what he called slavery.
“Olafeso and his team helped to unite the party in the region that is why you can see 90 percent of the delegates seated here. We had successful primary elections on Saturday for Lagos East senatorial zone and Kosofe constituency 2 by-elections, which were rancor-free. These are some of our achievements in seven months,” Doherty said.
Doherty, while regretting that the Lagos chapter had been relegated to the background in the area of representation at regional and national levels, placed demands on the aspirants.
“We don’t have more than one substantive position in the zonal level. We are going to give our votes but our representation in the South West zone must increase. We must have a member of the chapter at the National Working Committee (NWC).
“We requested a member at the Board of Trustees which has gone through first approval and final approval will come when Eddy Olafeso becomes the chairman,” he added.
Olafeso, while stating his reason for contesting, said that he was concerned about uniting the party in the region, stressing that even though Oyo State was achieved; he had an unfinished project of strengthening the party and winning more states for the party in the region.
According to him, “We are committed to serving with humility and ensuring that our people get whatever they are seeking from the party, not only at the zonal level but across the country.
“Talking about the challenge of having a robust opposition, it is a problem which is peculiar to developing countries. We are gagged, and we don’t have enough finance to do the things that we would want to do, coupled with the role of the ruling party in dividing the ranks of the opposition party.
“We will try hard to ensure that we deliver the dividend of democracy to Nigerians. As you can see the country is ungovernable, we have issues of insecurity, economic depression, unemployment, and suddenly they have removed subsidies and our people are languishing in poverty.”
