Ekiti 2014: PDP leaders adopt Fayose as guber candidateFormer Governor, Ayodele Fayose’s bid to get the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State for the 2014 received a boost yesterday as different group of leaders of the party in the state adopted him as their candidate. The PDP leaders,who held a meeting at Park View, Ado-Ekiti included current and former local government chairmen, women leaders, secretaries and treasurers in the 16 local government areas of the state, who have the voting rights in PDP primary election in the state. They also urged the state and national leadership of the party not to toy with the fortunes of the party in the 2014 governorship election, saying, “if Fayose is not taken as the consensus candidate of the party for 2014 election, then a free and fair primary election must be held where an acceptable candidate would be voted for by the delegates. They vehemently rejected any move to impose a candidate from Abuja in the name of consensus by manipulating the selection of the party’s standard bearer in the poll. The PDP leaders said as statutory delegates to the party’s primary, any primary or consensus arrangement to pick the party’s candidate for the poll must be free and fair and allowed to be an Ekiti affair. According to them, the party could not afford to waste the opportunity offered by the election to prove its relevance in the politics of South-West presently dominated by the Action Congress of Nigeria. The communiqué, endorsed by Prince Otitoju Tayelolu (for chairmen), Mrs. Olayiwola Funmi (for women leaders), Omodara Olaposi (for youth leaders), Adeleye Tajudeen (for treasurers) and Femi Fafore, said the PDP could not afford to gamble with its chances in the governorship election. “By the right placed on us by our party’s constitution as automatic/statutory delegates, there is no way a party’s candidate can emerge without our input. We enjoin the leadership of this party to make this primary election or consensus an Ekiti affair. We should not allow sentiment to over ride public interest,” they said. Expatiating on their stand, Chief Diran Adeleye, a former chairman of the party in Ado Local Government Area, said they would want the party’s leadership to consider holding primary, as that was what led to the victory of the party in 2003. “In 2003, when our party was more or less an outcast in the state and even in the South-West, the PDP held a transparent primary and a winner emerged. That did not lead to any quarrel as the loser knew he duly lost. “If I contest with somebody of my son’s age and I lose the primary in a transparent manner, there will not be any problem,” he said. Adeleye added that he and the current and former chairmen of the party in the state were rooting for former Governor Ayo Fayose as they believed he had the qualities to lead the party to victory. He explained further that as leaders of the party, they would support holding primary to choose the candidate, as it would reduce rancour. “If the primary is held in a transparent manner, the winner that emerges will be acceptable to the people. If the leadership, however, decides to go for consensus candidacy, the best way to go about it is that it should be transparent as well and stakeholders in the state be involved. You cannot cut a person’s head behind his back. Those that will be involved in the choice of any consensus candidate should be those who have the right to do so. What I mean is that they must sample the opinion of party leaders and groups such as ours and make the right choice,” he stated.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 10:02:56 +0000
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