By Lanre Adesanya
The factional Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos state, Mr Segun Adewale (Aeroland) has reiterated his commitment to wrest power from the ruling party at the upcoming council poll, alleging that Chief Bode George and the Markafi faction were out to thwart that by their recent cross to the new party Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance APDA .
Adewale in parley with teeming party faithful at the PDP secretariat in Lagos stressed that there are plans by the Chief Bode George/Markafi faction to convert the secretariat to APDA’s, as the Police were also stationed to take effect that.
Members of the party wielding placards at the gathering state their detest for the development in the party.
The inscriptions in the placards includes; “PDP Lagos is United Aeroland is our Chairman”, “Bode George leave PDP alone”, “PDP Lagos Aeroland ‘D’ Authentic Chairman”, “PDP Lagos is United under the leadership of Aeroland”, “PDP is not divided,PDP is one under O-Otunba,S-Segun, A-Adewale Aeroland”.
“Chief Bode George led some people to APDA and also call on the Police to take over PDP secretariat,claiming he is the one that pays the rent here,then we insist that if at all they want us out of here at least they must give us six months quit notice and we would leave.
“We are not ready to ready to cross into APDA and you can’t come and convert our secretariat and that is why we mobilize ourselves here to say that we can’t leave our secretariat to APDA we are PDP members.
“It is on record that majority of the people moving to APDA are the ones that misled Jonathan in 2015 elections they advised him to step down,for a Nothern candidate to come around but the same people forced him to contest.Now we want to remain in PDP but they want to forcefully convert our office to APDA’s.
“We are calling on the President to intervene and call the Police to order why should Police meddle in our affair? We are not fighting ourselves as you can see,so what is Police doing here?
“You can see they are here to take over this secretariat for Chief Bode George and we said no, he has been running our affairs since 2003.This is the only secretariat in Nigeria that has not won a governorship election in Nigeria,almost 16 years now and before it becomes 20 years, we say give us the chance to lead as we have won elections before.
“If you fail to win a polling booth for the past 16 years what signs have you to show that 2019 you will deliver, so we are here from the Sheriff faction and by law via the Appeal court that declared him winner.He was the one who conducted the congress that brought me out as chairman,they should honour and respect that office.
Adewale reiterates his reconciliatory efforts targeted at reinvigorating the party politically in Lagos, citing the Markafi’s factions refusal to cooperate for the good of the party.
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“I gave them the opportunity that prior to the much awaited Supreme court’s verdict, to work together with us and we left the offices they locked here while we manage the ones opened until the judgement, but they are saying no it is not fair.
“There is no crisis in PDP now, what we have is APDA and we are not aligning with that because we have only one chairman, Markafi accepted the fact that for now Sheriff is still the chairman until otherwise pronounced by the Supreme court,that’s all.
“Chief Bode George has never won anything before not even a polling booth,we call on the faction now in APDA to join us and win,by our coming together we will wrestle power from APC.
“We only have about two months to prepare, we fought seriously with LASIEC because they prefer to recognize Markafi faction and we ask them why because they have no letter from Markafi to that effect.
“We got a letter from Sheriff that Segun Adewale should act on his behalf in Lagos it was on the strength of that that they now recognised us.
Commenting on the preparedness of the PDP for the council poll, Adewale maintained that,“Our plan is that the moment we are able to get ourselves together because the people giving us problem are the ones in APDA, the Bode George and Markafi loyalist have left to APDA.
“I had earlier extended an olive branch to the Markafi faction with respect to the coming council poll that I will be the Deputy chairman while he remain the Chairman, more like a 50/50 arrangement they refused and moved to APDA.