A former Chief of Staff to the Oyo State government and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Saka Balogun, has called on the National Working Committee of the party to, as a matter of urgency; dissolve the party’s executives from ward to state level if PDP hopes to win back the state in 2015. This is just as he declared that there is no overall leader in Oyo PDP but many leaders who control different geo-political zones of the State.

Speaking in Ibadan on Thursday, Balogun accused the national secretariat of the PDP as blocking all peace avenues and efforts to reposition the party to stand it well positioned for the 2015 general elections. He stressed that the disunity in the party was preventing chieftain and members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from moving en mass to the PDP, adding

that unless the executives are dissolved en bloc, the party would not achieve

anything meaning in the coming election.

“At different times, we wrote asking the national secretariat to come here and dissolve the executives ab initio from the ward to State level. At a point in time we were toying with the idea of harmonisation. But how do you harmonise without removing some and putting others as substitutes?

“Teslim Folarin is insisting that nobody can touch any of the existing officers. How can you then talk of harmonisation? If there is going to be any meaningful reconciliation in Oyo PDP, the best way to get it is to dissolve all the existing executives from the ward to state levels. "And then a panel should be sent from the national headquarters to supervise fresh congresses from ward to state and there will be peace.

“The way out of the crisis in the party is blocked because the national secretariat which should look into the problem and solve it is not doing so, perhaps because they have some favourites. I cannot see how any fair minded party leader in PDP would impose any particular aspirant as candidate in Oyo PDP. It will not work.

“Folarin is holding on to the executives because of his 2015 governorship ambition forgetting that some other people have held on to the executives without being governor and without winning anything."He knows himself and I have told him. It is in self-delusion that he is keeping the executives.

“So many people are hitching to join the PDP from other parties in Oyo State because the APC administration has never got it right. And many of their leaders are hitching to come to PDP but because the PDP is not in good shape, that is why they are still holding back,” he said.

“I have read in some newspaper publications that Alhaji Yekeen Adeojo is the leader of the party in Oyo State. Who appointed him? Write it in your report that I said so. He has never been appointed ‘the leader.’

“He is one of the leaders, just as Adebayo Alao-Akala, Jumoke Akinjide, Teslim Folarinst and others. The problem with Oyo PDP is that we are in disparate groups and that is the bane of our party.

“Those who claim to be leaders, who are they leading? Can Adeojo boast of followership in Ogbomosho area? Can Folarin do the same? Can I say I enjoy followership in Ibadan better than Adeojo? They are not realistic,” he added.