From Segun Ayinde, Abeokuta
Newly elected Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ogun State, Abayomi Tella on Saturday called on aggrieved members and decampees to return to the party and build a new PDP in order to take over the reigns of power from the All Progressives Congress, APC, come 2027.
Tella equally urged the aggrieved members to stop patronising courtrooms and enslaving themselves in the hands of APC, insisting that his new executive would finalise plans on how to take over leadership from the ruling party in the forthcoming November 16 local government election and the next general elections in the state.
He disclosed this shortly after emerging the new PDP state chairman at the 2024 State Congress held in Abeokuta, where over 2,500 delegates from the 20 local government areas voted under the supervision of a seven-man delegate led by Mr Kabiru Jauro from the party’s headquarters in Abuja, and officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Appealing to aggrieved members and decampees to come back, the new party chairman said PDP under his watch would be rejuvenated, rebuilt and repositioned to take over the seat of power in 2027, asking the decamped members to emancipate themselves from the slavery of the ruling APC.
Tella asked members who decamped to the APC and other political parties to recall the victories of the PDP in 2003 and 2007, and come back to the party to eject the APC, which to him denied the people the benefits of democracy and plunged them into abject poverty, from the seat of power in 2027
“It is disheartening to describe the party as a tree that bears no fruit anymore. Many of the people who had benefited from its previous electoral victories are currently slaving in the APC, we are using this opportunity to request them to return to base and join us in having a PDP that will be difficult to beat in 2027 and beyond.
“I must say that our true identity is not that of opposition but getting back to our heritage of a ruling party. It is imminent and must happen at the next polls. We must inevitably ascribe the success of today’s congress to various eminent people who made themselves available to be instrumental to this God project”.
“Ogun State PDP will be proudly rejuvenated, rebuilt, rejigged and repositioned for success in the coming polls. There is no doubt that the party has gone through a series of underserved trauma, various forms of unnecessary internal friction, judicial intervention in our domestic affairs and reckless media onslaught by supposed members of the party”, he said.
Earlier, Jauro stated that the conduct of the party’s state congress was peaceful amid tight security and denied being aware of a parallel state congress of the party.
