A faction of the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), led by its chairman Alhaji Taminu Turaki, and its National Working Committee (NWC) held a closed-door meeting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday.
Turaki, alongside former governors of Niger State, Alhaji Muazu Babangida; and Plateau State, Senator Jonah Jang, and other senior party leaders, arrived at the former president’s residence within the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, at about 11:38 am.
Obasanjo commended the faction’s effort, adding that its members should ‘soldier on’.
Je also urged them to remain steadfast in instilling discipline in the party, saying that ‘anybody who wants to belong to a political party must adhere strictly to its rules and regulations’.
The PDP leaders subsequently proceeded for a private meeting with Obasanjo.
In January 2023, Obasanjo, who was elected President on the ticket of the PDP in 1999 and 2003, told the party leaders that he would not return to the party, when delegation, led by the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, four former governors, and members of the party’s National Working Committee visited him at his residence in Abeokuta.
Ahead of the 2023 PDP presidential pprimary in May 2022, Obasanjo held a similar meeting with three sitting PDP governors in Abeokuta. They were: Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Seyi Makinde (Oyo) and Samuel Ortom (Benue) and a former Cross River Governor, Mr. Donald Duke.
The balkanisation of the party however became official recently as the tenure of the NWC elected in October 2021 drew to a close.
In November, a faction of the party backed by the PDP governors, including Bala Mohammed (Bauchi) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo), held a convention in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, and elected new NWC members, with Turaki as Chairman.
During the controversial convention, the faction expelled Wike and his allies — a former Governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose; and the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, among others.
The Wike group rejected the expulsion and has formed a parallel NWC, Board of Trustees, and National Executive Committee.
In a return, the Wike faction also expelled members of the Makinde faction.
