Those who once mocked the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Edo State are now divided against themselves.

BY SIMON EBEGBULEM

The ward and Local Government congresses of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo state may have come and gone but the outcome of it is still reverberating.

Comrade Adams Oshomole

The congresses led to threats by loyalists of the former South South Vice Chairman of the party, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu to dump the party for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Pastor Ize-Iyamu and his associates followed up that threat with a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan and Chief Tony Anenih, the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP on Monday and Tuesday. Anenih is the same man that Ize-Iyamu and his Grace Group had once taunted with that popular political maxim, “no man is God.” Before the meeting with the PDP leaders in Abuja, Governor Adams Oshiomhole had sought to make peace with Ize-Iyamu and his group in a meeting last Saturday, but the outcome of the meeting was inconclusive.

Vanguard learnt that they informed the governor of their scheduled meeting with the presidency and informed him that their meeting with the presidency will determine their next line of action. The crux of the trouble is the unending plot by associates of Governor Oshiomhole to position themselves in the party structure for the succession that is not due until 2016. Indeed, before the commencement of the congresses, Oshiomhole had urged the party leaders to present consensus candidates so that the congresses would be a mere formality.

In some places the message was taken, but not in Edo South Senatorial district where nearly every one agrees that the successor to the comrade governor should come from.

Edo South is also the base of Ize-Iyamu and the deputy governor of the state, Dr. Pius Odibo, the two leading aspirants in the party to succeed Oshiomhole. Interestingly, the two men are from the same Orihonmwon Local Government Area in the Southern senatorial district.

Ize-Iyamu who led the structure that brought Oshiomhole to power and was until recently the national vice chairman (South-South) of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN insisted on a full blown congress.

Oshiomhole it was alleged, had appealed to the two men to share the ten wards in the council equally so as to avoid going for a full blown congress, they, however, disagreed on the issue of chairmanship of the party in the council.

Full blown congress

Ize-Iyamu was said to have thus insisted on a full blown congress. The ward congress held on Tuesday April 8, was marred by several defects including the absence of materials and supervisors.

Ize-Iyamu and his supporters condemned the exercise and called for its cancellation.

After a review of the exercise, Governor Oshiomhole cancelled the exercise and fixed Saturday, April 12, for a fresh exercise. In the vote that held on the rescheduled day, Odubu’s candidates carried the day in his Urhonigbe North ward and five other wards.

Ize-Iyamu was, however, stuck in his Ugboko ward 5. Due to the crowd that came out for the exercise, he suggested that the party members should be allowed to only display their party cards and vote rather than embarking on serious accreditation which according to him would take the entire day or more.

But a leader of the party in the ward, Mathew Ehigie, who is known to be an ardent supporter of Odubu disagreed and insisted that accreditation must take place before the exercise could go on, alleging that Ize-Iyamu cloned the party’s card to distribute to people he described as his church members imported from Benin and Esan to come and vote for his candidate.

Following the disagreement, the officials cancelled the exercise in the ward.

Speaking on the development in his ward, Pastor Ize-Iyamu said: “the Comrade Governor did his best to make this exercise credible but there were still issues with the party’s register due to the recent registration exercise of the party. And that was why I suggested that since the register does not have complete names of our members people should be allowed to vote with their party cards.

But I heard that the exercise was poorly conducted in most areas and where our people were winning the other side would initiate violence to disrupt the exercise”. On his part, Odubu hailed the exercise and commended the governor for allowing them test their popularity at the grass root.

While the governor’s loyalists hailed the conduct of the ward and local government congresses, Ize-Iyamu’s supporters called for cancellation warning that they could dump the party for the PDP. The beef of the members of the group was manifested at a meeting last Thursday where they accused Oshiomhole of dictatorial tendencies and gave him seven days to cancel what they described as the “sham ward, Local Government and party registration exercise or they will dump the party”.

The communiqué read by former state chairman of the party, Prince Tony Omoaghe, demanded that the governor should relinquish control and monopoly of the party in order to pave way for an inclusive political system which respects the sanctity of internal democracy and is “devoid of deliberate sponsorship of rancour and factionalization within the party and recognises the worth of all party faithful across the state”.

But the tension in the party is heightening every day, as Vanguard was reliably informed that some political veterans who have always accused the governor of conceding to Ize-Iyamu on several political issues are watching with keen interest how the governor intends to resolve the matter.

Winners and losers

This group mainly core loyalists of the governor are threatening to carry up their own arms if he panders to Ize-Iyamu’s interests once again.

As one of them told Vanguard that “we don’t want to lose our members and we are happy with the effort being made by the governor to bring them back to the party. But the truth is that this is an issue of winners and losers. Those who are complaining lost their congresses so the question now is are you going to make those who lost kings and make those who won spectators?

So the governor should be careful too, we also know how to call meetings and threaten too, nobody has monopoly of anything. We are watching, if the governor now wants to tell us that threats and fight is all he listens to then we may also take up arms. So while he is trying to pacify them, he must be careful too”.

But given the past relationship between Ize-Iyamu and the PDP, particularly, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, many believe that it would be difficult for Ize-Iyamu to go back to the PDP. Even if he is accepted back, the place of reckoning he craves would remain elusive except the man of God that he is would sing “one man is a god”.