PDP Primaries: Ogun State produces two governorship candidates

#ElectionbuzzNig’23

Two factions of the Ogun Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP held parallel governorship primaries in Abeokuta on Wednesday to elect governorship flag bearers for the party ahead of the 2023 elections.

A faction has announced Ladi Adebutu as the winner to contest the gubernatorial election come 2023.

Adebutu, a former House of Representatives, defeated three other contestants. 

A five- 5-man Electoral Committee from the PDP National Secretariat and officials from the Electoral Commission, INEC, were present to conduct and monitor the process.

The 5-man Electoral Committee led by Professor Akase Sorkaa while announcing the result, said Adebutu polled 714 votes to defeat Sowunmi, Lawal and Abodunrin who all polled zero votes.

Sorkaa encouraged all the delegates to elect candidates who would be acceptable to the people.

Adebutu expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the election saying he was happy being the chosen candidate of the party.

The former House of Representatives member thanked the resilience of the state delegates for their trust and gave him their mandate to represent them. 

 “I seized this opportunity for bringing us thus far, it is a tedious journey. It is a lack of compassion and time which makes us as a failed nation. It has led to a lack of empathy and sympathy. I must create hope and an environment to believe your tomorrow shall be better. If you believe your today cannot be better than tomorrow, you have failed. If your earnings cannot make you a better tomorrow, we have failed.

“There is a big problem. The first is the problem of hunger in the land. We must go back to agriculture. Thank God Ogun state is extensively a rural community, and there shall be the dignity of labour. 

“Let us retool and get commissioned for being a gateway state. All the industries are leaving Ota because the present government has failed. We shall provide electricity and those industries would stay. We shall think and do things differently. 

“When you have a trustworthy government, the private sector would bring money into governance. The private sector should build roads and transfer them to the government, the government revenue should be invested in hospitals and the socio-economic sector not on road infrastructure.”

Similarly, earlier on Wednesday, party faithful loyal to former spokesperson to Atiku Abubakar, Segun Sowunmi held its election at the Nigerian Union of Journalists Secretariat.

The Showunmi faction conducted an election with the officials from the National Working Committee of the party led by Honourable Abayomi Daniel. 

Daniel declared Segun Showunmi as the Ogun PDP governorship candidate polling 545 votes of the total 702 votes cast out of 728 accredited delegates.

His political rivals, Jimi Lawal and Oladipupo Adebutu respectively poll 30 and 15 votes.

“By the power conferred on me by the national leadership of our great party as the chairman electoral committee of the PDP governorship primary election in Ogun, I declare Segun Sowunmi winner of the election, having polled the highest number of votes and he is hereby returned and elected,” Daniel said.

Sowunmi in his acceptance speech commended members of the party for their support and promised not to let them down.

He called on other aspirants to work together with him to secure victory for the party in the 2023 general elections.

Meanwhile, earlier before voting commenced pandemonium broke out as the faction loyal to Adebutu disagreed with the faction to Lawal over the conflicting delegates list.
This resulted in crisis as armed security men began to shoot sporadically into the air to disperse political thugs trying to hijack the election.

The development forced the INEC officials to depart the venue of governorship primaries for about 30minutes but later reconvened when calmness returned.

However, before the commencement of voting, Jimi Lawal and his followers quietly walked out of the venue following the disagreement over the delegate’s list.

Dominica Nwabufo