…Denies alliance with ZLP
Bamigbola Gbolagunte, Akure
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Ondo State, has said it never met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo ahead of the governorship election.
The party denied any form of alliance with the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Kennedy Peretei, said the PDP did not participate in the meeting between Obasanjo and former governor of the state, Olusegun Mimiko. “If former Governor Segun Mimiko met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, that did not in any way concern the PDP, as Mimiko is not a member of our party and we had never been invited for any talk by the former President,” he said.
He said: “For the avoidance of doubt, we will like to declare to the whole world that the PDP has never sat down anywhere with anybody in the ZLP to discuss any merger plan, much less perceived any move or begged to make its governorship candidate step down. This is another typical tale by the moonlight, often told during the election period.”
He said the PDP candidate, Eyitayo Jegede was never asked to step down for the ZLP candidate, Agboola Ajayi, and added that such an idea was a concocted lie.
“How can the duly elected governorship candidate of the biggest political party in Africa, step down for the candidate of a bedroom political party? While the PDP welcomes other political parties to join the winning team in dislodging the present locust regime under the All Progressives Congress (APC), and install a government of the people, the PDP has never changed its identity and name and will never commit the sacrilege at the Ondo State level”, he said.
The PDP noted that the ZLP candidate, who is the current deputy governor of Ondo State, left the APC for the PDP, and was “magnanimously given a waiver to test his popularity by contesting for the PDP governorship ticket, but lost the primary in a poll which he himself described as free and fair.”
He said Ajayi joined the ZLP barely two months after he joined the PDP, and was handpicked by a political godfather to become a governorship candidate.