By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

Senator Buruji Kashamu, who was at one time famed as the financier of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the Southwest, may finally be putting his influence to where he has put his money. The Ogun East senator, who came to national political reckoning after smashing the dominant influence of President Olusegun Obasanjo over the affairs of the PDP, especially in the Southwest, was a repeating decimal in at least three states where the party elected new executives this week.

Kashamu

In his native Ogun State, Senator Kashamu led his group to organise one of three parallel state congresses that threw up three parallel PDP executives in the state.

One faction was led by Speaker Dimeji Bankole, the former helmsman in the House of Representatives while yet another faction was led by a serving member of the House of Representatives, Rep Ladi Adebutu, the member representing Remo Constituency.

Senator Kashamu’s dominance of the political space in Ogun State, of course, is not new. In fact, what could be surprising was the fact that after edging out Obasanjo, that some other stakeholders in the state could muster the confidence to challenge his hold on the party which he has supposedly been funding.

What is even more surprising for some was the fact that Kashamu has now taken his political dominance outside Ogun to other states in the Southwest, notably, Lagos and Ekiti states. In Lagos State, Kashamu is said to be challenging the formidable structure erected by the former deputy national chairman of the party, Chief Bode George.

Given that George had in the past weathered challenges mounted by some local party chieftains such as Senator Musiliu Obanikoro and Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, the addition of Kashamu to the opposition is bound to seriously stress Chief George. The quarrel between George and Kashamu had long been anticipated, especially as both men had taken sharply separate positions on the issues affecting the party at regional and national levels.

The most recent and perhaps sharpest difference between both men was in the positions they took on the zoning of the office of national chairman of the party. Kashamu, alongside Governor Ayodele Fayose, were in the forefront for sustaining the incumbent national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as national chairman at the forthcoming national convention. Their position was against the sharp campaign of the George camp for the zoning of the office of national chairman to the Southwest on the basis of the fact that it is the only zone that has yet to hold the office.

Sources in the party claim that Kashamu’s foot soldiers were visible everywhere there was trouble during the Lagos congresses, a development they claim signposted the determination of the controversial senator to decimate George’s domination of the party in the state.

Besides Lagos and Ogun, Senator Kashamu’s influence was also surprisingly reported in Ekiti State where Governor Ayodele Fayose’s stranglehold on the party was for the first time in two years breached. A rival group of party members believed to be loyal to Kashamu was said to have conducted a rival congress to that attended by Fayose’s loyalists where a separate state executive was elected.

PDP war against hoodlums and monsters 

Senator Kashamu’s hand is also not far removed from the crisis in the national party which finally led to the split of the national party last Thursday. The group of party founders led by Prof. Jerry Gana and including at least two former national chairmen, Dr. Okwesileze Nwodo, and Prince Vin Ogbulafor, vowed to take back the party from the “hoodlums and monsters” they claimed had now taken over the party. It was an open declaration of war given the fact that some governors in the party are openly pushing for the incumbent governor, Senator Modu Ali Sheriff to continue in office.

Remarkably, Sheriff who joined the party just two years ago in his riposte has asked those opposed to his advent to take the exit door out of the party!

The dishonesty among a pastor’s political allies

Political parties should ordinarily be a platform for likeminded individuals to rally round one another especially on issues. But not necessarily so in these shores as Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu may be finding out.

After the pastor and leading PDP candidate for the governorship ticket of his party in Edo State was quizzed earlier this week by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, what should ordinarily have been a sobriety of mind among PDP members was betrayed by the elation of some. The reason was not farfetched: trouble in the house of Ize-Iyamu would ordinarily be to the benefit of his political rivals in the party.

But given the pastor’s robust explanation of his expenditure of the 2015 presidential campaign funds to the EFCC interrogators, it is, in fact, debatable whether the expectation of his traducers would remain a forlorn hope or not.