AS a staunch supporter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ondo State, I strongly believe that it is now time for the party leadership to act decisively and strategically by undertaking a massive re-organisation of Ondo State PDP and render powerless and irrelevant, all the yesterday’s men who contributed absolutely nothing to the party’s triumphant re-entry into mainstream of Ondo politics, defined by PDP’s positive performance at the presidential polls in the state.

This is in reference to the party’s logic-defying and overwhelming top-rating during penultimate week’s elections against the backdrop of buck-passing, criticisms and political tirades sponsored against individuals in the aftermath of the National Assembly elections in Ondo State. An example is an advertorial purportedly published by a circus group going by the name PDP Youth Leaders Forum on Thursday April 14, 2011 in a national newspaper.

Surprisingly in the subsequent election following that publication, the PDP performed masterfully well, delivering Ondo State to President Goodluck Jonathan and ensuring that the President won the election to remain at Aso Rock, to begin his own term of office, as opposed to the term he was completing, which was that of the late President Umaru Yar‘Adua.

It is categorically clear that the results of the presidential election roundly confounded the party’s fifth columnists that had been hoping and praying for the PDP’s downfall and another disappointing showing, following its dismal performance during the National Assembly election held a week earlier. These fifth columnists had wished that PDP would perform abysmally at the poll again last week but their wish did not come true.

Whereas while these former leaders and their party apparatchiks were busy pronouncing and sounding the party’s death knell prior to the presidential polls, other stakeholders were busy mobilising and strategizing how they would enable the President obtain a sizeable majority of Ondo State votes for Jonathan throughout the week leading to the elections, and thank God the result of all their efforts was the resounding success of the party at the election.

It is a fact of life that all those who sow the wind shall surely reap the whirlwind and the time has come to sanction those party leaders in the state who worked tirelessly to undermine and sabotage the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan in Ondo State.

Having lost at the National Assembly elections, they directed a lot of their aides and followers to support another presidential candidate so as to cast the authentic leaders in bad light. They have continued to frustrate all efforts to re-position the party and make it a formidable force in the forefront of Ondo politics and ensure it remains there, as an effective opposition party, until hopefully, it can return to power in 2013, when the gubernatorial election is slated to hold in the state.

The national secretariat should ensure that stern disciplinary action are meted out to a leader of the party in the state and the old brigade leadership generally, who are the sponsors and masterminds of the party’s woes at the NASS election.

We are all very familiar with the leader’s antecedents, that at the first sign of trouble or challenge to his authority or position, he quakes and begins to blame others for his shortcomings rather than acknowledge his weaknesses that cost our party the loss of the governorship seat to the Labour Party in 2007.

We will not allow an individual and his small gang of supporters to derail others from the sterling work necessary to rebuild the party as the “primus inter pares” (the first among equals) in the state and return same to its position of pre-eminence in Ondo State, before the party fell from grace to grass.

We are however confident that the earlier the party is reformed and a new leadership structure put in place, the better. Undoubtedly, the party would regain its pre-eminent status as the party to beat in subsequent elections in Ondo, with the strategy to reclaim power in 2013.

Definitely, an integral part of this objective is for the party at the state level to undergo a forensic house-cleaning exercise which is designed to expose and rid the party of former leaders who have lost the mandate to lead and have become political liabilities and ‘clogs’ to the new PDP that would emerge, by the time the forensic audit of all key executives is concluded.

One of the surest verdicts that would emerge from this exercise is that the party would be viewed in a new light as a purposeful, people-oriented, electorate-driven party that would be committed to uplifting the socio-economic well-being of Ondo people with an objective of making them the most prosperous in the land.

This is our goal as a party and we intend to enhance the socio-economic development of our people.

Mr. AKINSOLA BENSON, a commentator  on national issues, wrote from Akure, Ondo State.