Despite Crisis, PDP Still Holds Hope, Says Ogidi
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Emmanuel Ogidi, has expressed confidence that the opposition party will overcome its current challenges.
Ogidi, the caretaker chairman of the PDP in the South-South geopolitical zone, said that despite the crisis rocking the party, there remains hope of the PDP continuing as the main opposition.
“We are fighting a system that is trying to destroy democracy,” he said on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.
“There is hope for democracy because PDP is the face of the opposition. PDP stands for democracy.”
The PDP has been grappling with an internal crisis that has seen members resigning in large numbers.
Former spokesman of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, resigned from the PDP on 6 December. Following his resignation, Ologbondiyan is expected to formally join the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the opposition coalition formed in June.
The crisis in the PDP came to a head on 15 November when a group of party elders, against the backdrop of fierce legal battles, decided to hold the party’s elective conference in Ibadan, Oyo State.
They were hosted by Governor Seyi Makinde, the PDP Governor of Oyo State. The build-up to the convention was marked by conflicting rulings in the federal high court and the Oyo State high court, with judges in both courts cancelling each other out.
On Friday, 14 November, Justice Peter Lifu of the federal high court, at about 8.30 a.m., ordered a suspension of the PDP convention. Before him, Justice James Omotoso, also of the federal high court, had issued a similar order. By 2.30 p.m. on the same day, Justice Ladiran Akintola of the Oyo State high court gave a different ruling, directing that the convention should proceed and that INEC should oversee the elections at the convention.
