FORMER president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has invoked the wrath of the gods on any disloyal member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the party tries to reinvent itself ahead of the October 20 gubernatorial polls in Ondo State.Obasanjo, who hails from Owu in Abeokuta Ogun State, was ushered into the podium with the shouts of 'Ebora Owu' (the Supernatural Being of Owu).The gathering, tagged 'Unity Rally,' was meant to show the determination of the party to win back the state. The gathering was also seen as a response by PDP to debunk insinuations that Ondo PDP is an orphan abandoned by its Abuja fathers in preference for another party.The impressive gathering included the party's Deputy National Chairman, Dr Sam Jaja, the Presidential Adviser on Amnesty Programme, Kingsley Kuku, (who represented President Goodluck Jonathan), former governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, former Minister of Defence, Tokunbo Kayode and former governor of Ekiti State and Vice-Chairman, (South West), Segun Oni.Obasanjo, while addressing the crowd that gathered at the Democracy Park in Akure, appealed to disgruntled or aggrieved party members to sheathe the sword and work as one family to take the party back to political power in the state.He said: 'I am begging all aggrieved members to let us work together in the interest of our party. This is not the time to bear grudges; it is a time to work as one family. What I am saying is directed to those of our leaders and members from this state who are not present here but who still have sympathy for the PDP. Don't let us play the spoiler's game.'But for those who want to do that despite this appeal, bear in mind that any action that is meant to promote the candidacy of anybody not within our party, is an act of immorality, illegality and anti party. And anyone guilty of this is courting the wrath of man on Earth and the wrath of God in heaven.'While some people in the crowd saw Obasanjo's speech as just campaign invectives, others looked beyond his characteristic humour and took the speech as a serious rebuke of some members. And to observers of events within the PDP in the last three years, the statement may be the needed admonition, a wakeup call to whip back in line those perceived to be working against the party.Two days earlier, an Akure High Court, ruling on a suit instituted by some aggrieved members of PDP, nullified the process that produced the party's State Working Committee (SWC) headed by Ebenezer Alabi.The group that got the ruling included former envoy to Greece and Australia, Prof. Olu Agbi, Senator Gbenga Ogunniya and Chief Segun Adegoke. They had argued that the party should persuade the incumbent governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko to leave the Labour Party (LP) and return to PDP.They had argued that it was only Mimiko, who defeated the PDP 'even when the party had all the power of incumbency,' that can sail successfully in the waters of Ondo politics, given his grip on the grassroots population.The national chairman of the PDP Alhaji Bamanga Tukur reportedly refused to be swayed by their argument since Mimiko has neither fused his LP with the PDP nor made a definite pronouncement to that effect.Indeed, since the party lost political power in February 2009, it has been ravaged by internal crises and the emergence of Olusola Oke, the party's former National Legal Adviser, as the governorship candidate is seen as a major factor that can cement the unity of the state party.Oke, who with Agagu nurtured the party between 1999 and 2003, is seen as the only force that can bind the party together and stand up to Mimiko's political machinery in an electoral contest.While the party has lost many of its leaders to the LP and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) as a result of the internal crises, there are several other leaders who have refused to show public commitment to the growth of the party.So far, Oke who in the last one year had brokered many reconciliatory meetings in the party, has been able to act as the binding factor and many aggrieved leaders have come back to the party giving the platform a new lease of life needed for a party seeking electoral victory.In the last three months, the profile of the Ondo PDP had risen as a serious contender in the race to Alagbaka Government House. It is a development insiders in the party believe should receive the support of its national leadership.They bemoan the reality that some members of the national leadership have not keyed into the new strength of the party in the state and their public utterances could as well be termed as being in conflict with the interest of their party.About three months ago during the commissioning of one of the mega primary school projects of the LP administration in Ondo, the Minister of State for Education, Ezenwo Wike lavishly praised the Mimiko administration for its giant strides and noted that, 'this is a governor that deserves a second term in office.'The statement was seen as an endorsement of the second term ambition of the incumbent and the state PDP did not condone the statement, which it described as 'unfortunate.' They considered it as insensitive and uninformed coming from a PDP minister at a time the state chapter of his party was preparing for election,The party's State Director of Publicity, Ayo Fadaka, immediately condemned the minister's statement as anti-party, and said that a formal petition requesting the national leadership to sanction Wike would be forwarded to Abuja. It is uncertain if the petition was written.If Wike could be forgiven after he admitted that he spoke as a statesman after he saw the level of primary education development in Ondo, and not a politician, not many people have shown such understanding towards Chief Ebenezer Babatope, a member of the party's Board of Trustees (BoT).In a statement, which is considered as a direct campaign for Mimiko, Babatope, a former Transport Minister who lost his bid for the PDP's National Secretary last year, said in Akure, 'I would have preferred a situation where my party did not field any candidate for the Ondo election.'He justified his endorsement of Mimiko for second term thus: 'I am totally convinced that the man had really worked to take Ondo to a very high level of development. I passed through this state on my way to Benin to campaign for the candidate of our party and the level of development I saw amazed me. What we are seeing in Ondo should be replicated in other South West states where nothing is moving in terms of development.'Babatope said, 'although I met Mimiko only once at a public function in Ibadan sometimes ago, I have followed with keen interest his administration in Ondo. I would have loved a situation where our party's candidate, Oke would have sought another position. The Ondo governorship election seems to me to be a no-go area.'Babatope's comments drew flaks from members of his party in the state, some of whom said, 'it is a shame that this kind of anti-party comment is coming from somebody that we all see as a leader of our party in the South West.'A former Commissioner of Information in the state, John Mafo, who spoke on behalf of the Oke camp said, 'Babatope is someone that some of us had grown to know and respect over the years but looking at him in recent times, it appears to all intents and purposes that the revolution fire that used to burn in him and the flare to identify with the downtrodden has gone out.'One might be disappointed, but certainly not surprised that he could speak like that because it appears that many of their leaders in the Osun State PDP are working for somebody that is not in their party in Ondo. It is a big shame. We call on the leadership of the PDP to call to order people like Babatope, who are one thing in the morning and another thing in the afternoon.'Mafo's reference to PDP leaders in Osun having preference for Mimiko may not be too far from the belief that a former Senator in the state and even the current National Secretary of the party are in the vanguard of the campaign that the Ondo governor must be persuaded to return to the PDP.A source said that the closeness of these Osun PDP leaders to the Ondo governor is responsible for the political enmity between him and his Osun counterpart, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola who at various public fora vowed to remove Mimiko from office and ensure the emergence of an ACN governor in the state.Aregbesola remains the most vocal of all the ACN governors in the call for Mimiko's replacement and Osogbo, the Osun State capital has since become the launching ground for the ACN onslaught against Ondo.But while Obasanjo's condemnation of the anti-party comments of his PDP compatriots is seen in his desire to see the party waxing stronger in its bid to win the state, the former BOT chairman might not be able to absolve himself from the same accusations he leveled against the PDP leaders.The former president at a function last year in Akure at St. David's Cathedral, the same venue where Babatope made his Mimiko endorsement speech, drove in the same car with Mimiko to inspect some ongoing projects in Akure metropolis, he reportedly said that the Ondo governor 'is a PDP man in Labour Party who is still expected back at his base.'Although Obasanjo was reported to have gone into a marathon meeting with some aggrieved members of the PDP to further persuade them to work together so that no one would incur 'the wrath of man on Earth and the wrath of God in heaven,' it still remains to be seen if the remaining time to election would be enough for the party to get its act together and return to Government House.
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