By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN—TWO-time Governor of old Bendel State and member Board of Trustees, BoT, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr Samuel Ogbemudia, who has been on medical treatment abroad, returned to the country yesterday, saying that his faction of the party was prepared to make sacrifices in the resolution of the lingering crisis in order not to kill the party in the state.

He has, therefore, called on the National Chairman of the party, Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo to use his wealth of experience to solve the protracted crisis in Edo State PDP.

Ogbemudia, who was received by thousands of his supporters, including chairman of his faction, Elder Sunny Uyigue, Senator Ehigie Uzamere, Publicity Secretary, Dr Francis Iyasere, Arisco Osenwengie and others, at the old toll gate, along the Benin-Lagos expressway, also disowned the former Chief of Staff to the state government, Mr Isaiah Osifo, over reports that the former claimed to have  his permission to represent him in some events.

He said, “I only asked him to represent me once, and that was during the one-man, one-vote rally, where I asked him to read my address and after that, he was on his own.”

Narrating the problem in the state PDP,  Ogbemudia said, “it is true that PDP in Edo State is factionalised. The faction came about as a result of the removal of the PDP Governor (Prof Oserhiemen Osunbor) because we believed quite rightly that some PDP members joined forces to ensure that Senator Osunbor was removed.

“We are not contesting in any way the judgment of the court because the court had evidence at its disposal than I have but that notwithstanding, I still nurse the grudge that we ought to have won. We haven’t lost much because the man who came later to take over from Osunbor (Governor Adams Oshiomhole) has been performing extraordinarily to the satisfaction of everybody,” he added.

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“Those who are criticizing are those who think they ought to be there but they are not there, but we are satisfied with the progress and we pray that the progress should continue,” he said.

According to him, “we had two factions earlier on, one was led by Osunbor and the other was led by Chief Anenih. When Osunbor joined Anenih, it was a matter of time that both should collapse into one but a few people met to examine the reason why the faction came about and found out that it was based on injustice, non-implementation of internal democracy, dictatorship, so they thought that it would be in the interest of the party and I believe them that they should ensure that before coming together, the issues must have been resolved.”