Ogun PDP: Otunba Gbenga Daniel No Longer a Party Member

Aug 23, 2011 – Ogun PDP: Otunba Gbenga Daniel No Longer a Party Member By KOLADE LAREWAJU

ABEOKUTA – THE Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ogun State, yesterday, said the immediate past Governor of the state, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, is no longer a member of the party under which platform he was elected Governor in 2003 and governed the state for eight years.

At a briefing on the forthcoming State PDP’s  Conference scheduled for Abeokuta, on Saturday and South West Conference holding on September 3, also in Abeokuta, the party alleged that Daniel caused it a collateral damage during the last elections

Speaking through Chief Bode Mustapha, a former member of the House of Representatives, the state PDP blamed Daniel for its poor performance  during the  general elections saying, “I don’t see OGD as a member of the party.”

He however noted that any member from the Peoples Party of Nigeria, PPN, was permitted by law to defect to PDP.

Mustapha who is also the Chairman, Organizing Committee of the Conferences said that the party had learnt its lessons and planned to ensure the mistakes that led to its failure would be corrected.

He said, “The collateral damage of Otunba Gbenga Daniel’s act was the loss of the last elections. So, it becomes important to re-brand the party. That is why I don’t see Daniel as a member of our party, PDP, again but any member of the PPN that wants to join PDP can come. Indeed the party has learnt from the past and our new watchwords are; internal democracy, proper crisis management mechanism, equal opportunity for all members and unprecedented discipline.”

“That is why the rationale for the two-day event is to re-brand, mobilize and re-awaken the membership strength. We had a Governor who was playing ‘god’. A Governor who thought he could put the party and everybody in his pocket and the collateral damage was that we lost the April elections.”

He said the party had opened its doors for all those who left the party and wanted to come back, were free to do so and insisted that the party’s position was that “whoever wants to return to the party must do so on individual basis and not as a group.”

Answering a question, Mustapha explained that Daniel who is the sole financier of the PPN in the State, as at yesterday was not a member of the PDP.