Doyin Okupe, former aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan has spoken concerning the upcoming Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national convention where new party leaders including the national chairman will be elected.
Okupe says that failure of the party to consider a Yoruba man as the new party chairman will make some of them reconsider their membership of the party.
He pointed out some facts in a Facebook post on Sunday, April 24, 2016. It is reproduced below:
There is an embarrassing falsehood being propagated by political charlatans from the South West and some influential collaborators in the top echelon of the Pdp.
The seed of this misrepresentation was sowed by a group of political clowns and court jesters under the leadership of Senator Buruji Kashamu, a political impostor who claims he is the leader of the party and the Yorubas in the South West.
On the 21st of April 2016, the cream of the authentic Yoruba leadership in the South West gathered at the Golden Gates Hotel on Kingsway Road, Ikoyi, under the chairmanship of Chief Olabode George, a retired air commodore, former governor, former deputy national chairman of the PDP and a grandson of the revered, legendary and world acclaimed, distinguished Yoruba icon and politician, Sir Herbert Macaulay.
At that meeting the true sons and daughters of Yoruba land in an unprecedented unity condemned the erstwhile claim by the Yoruba traitors who went and lied to the PDP chairman, His Excellency Sen Ali Modu Sheriff, that the Yorubas do not want the chairmanship of the PDP.
I want to state categorically here, without any fear of equivocation, that we, the Yoruba’s from the South West, desire and demand the post of the national chairman at the next convention of the party.
The followings are the past chairmen of the party, Chief Solomon Lar, Chief Gemade, Chief Audu Ogbe, Prince Ogbolafor, Dr. Nwodo, Alhadji Baraje, Dr. Haliru Bello (AG), Alhadji Bamangar Tukur, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, Prince Uche Secondus (Acting), and Senator Ali Modu Sherrif.
From the above within the last 18 years there have been 11 chairmen from 5 geopolitical zones. Only the Yoruba race from the South West have been precluded from this exalted office.
In the interest of fairness, equity and justice, it is most compelling that the Yorubas of the South West zone must be allowed to contest for this post at this coming national convention.
Any attempt to do anything to the contrary, no matter the reason advanced cannot be acceptable.
Failure for a Yoruba man to emerge as the national chairman can only mean two things.
1. That there is a pervasive and concealed hatred for the South West in the PDP, or;
2. That the PDP has very little or no regard for Yoruba interest as was evinced by the obvious cheating of the South West from the position of the speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011, which was never rectified nor compensated for the whole of four years.
The sad implication of the above is that, regrettably, many of us from the South West may have to reconsider our membership of this great party we have helped to nurture and supported through thick and thin. A party we have loved almost more than our very existence, and the party we have served with all our natural endowment, in victory and defeat.
If there exist any conscience, anywhere in this party, let that conscience speak now and stop the new and alien conscienceless power currently holding sway within the party hierarchy.
