End game for Kashamu in Ogun PDP?

The crisis rocking the Ogun State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a new dimension. The Buruji Kashamu faction has lost control of the party structure to the Ladi Adebutu group. Assistant Editor LEKE SALAUDEEN examines how the table turned against the Kashamu group.

The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State has taken a new twist. Senator Buruji Kashamu has lost control over the party, following the exit of the party Chairman, Chief Bayo Dayo, from Kashamu group. He has joined the Ladi Adebutu faction. Both Kashamu and Adebutu have been at daggers drawn with other over the control of the party.

Earlier, some members of the state executive committee, led by the Secretary, Mr Semiu Sodipo, dumped the Kashamu group and joined forces with the Adebutu faction. Out of the 14-member executive committee, 13 belong to the Adebutu group, while the Kashamu camp is left with only the Assistant Auditor. It is obvious that the Adebutu group has taken over the structure.

Since 2012, the Kashamu faction had been in total control, with the support of court judgments. As far back as 2010 Senator Buruji Kashamu had clashed with former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the choice of the chairman. Senator Dipo Odujurin, while Kashamu sponsored Bayo Dayo. There was litigation over the contest. At last, the court declared Dayo as the authentic chairman. That was how Kashhamu took over the party.

Observers say the fight over the soul of the party is an extension of the crisis that engulfed the PDP, prior to the 2011 general elections. Former Governor Gbenga Daniel was edged out of the party by Kashamu, who took over the structure. Daniel was forced to seek political relevance by floating a new party, the Peoples’ Party of Nigeria (PPN), for his supporters to contest.

But, Dayo has turned his back against his former financier. Kashamu has since appointed the Assistant Auditor, Mr Samson Bamgbose, as acting Chairman. The group has announced the suspension of Dayo over what it described as anti-party activities. Observers say the loss of Dayo to the Adebutu group is the last straw that has truncated Kashamu’s struggle to remain relevant in Ogun politics.

The odds are against Kashamu in the current struggle for the control of the party. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recognises Dayo PDP-led executive and not Kashamu group, although he financed his election and fought for its recognition in the court. Dayo and other members of the executive committee have pledged their loyalty to the Adebutu group.

The electoral body had declared the ward and local government congresses held by the Kashamu group null and void on the ground that the exercise was in defiance to the court order.  On March 3, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja had suspended the proposed congress. The court ordered that all parties involved in the suit should maintain the status quo, pending the hearing of the application. However, the group loyal to Kashamu went ahead to conduct the congresses on March 7, saying the ruling that parties should maintain status quo did not bar it from holding same.

In a letter dated March 10, 2020, the  INEC informed its national headquarters that the March 7, 2020 congress of the party did not hold. The letter was signed by the Head of Election and Party Monitoring Department, Mr Abayomi Onisarotu. The implication is that the PDP in Ogun State will hold fresh congresses that will be initiated by the state executive and approved by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC). It is obvious that the Ladi Adebutu group would have an edge now that it is in full control of the executive.

Kashamu is not in the good book of the Prince Uche Secondus-led NWC. He was suspended in 2017 and later expelled in 2018 over what the party described as anti-party activities. But, the expulsion could not take effect as Kashamu sought protection from the court. His suspension was quashed by the court. The judgment emboldened him to contest for the governorship election in 2019. Kashamu emerged as governorship candidate of the PDP, despite the stiff resistance from the NWC.

The party rejected Kashamu as its candidate and accused him of planning to destabilise the party. Thus, Ladi Adebutu emerged as its authentic candidate. The party alleged that “Kashamu never purchased the PDP nomination paper form and never participated in our governorship primary or in any process related to the nomination of the governorship candidate of our party or any position whatsoever”.

The party also alleged that “Senator Kashamu was being sponsored as an agent to cause confusion among its members. It urged its supporters in Ogun State to disregard him and continue in their support for “the PDP governorship candidate, Ladi Adebutu”.

Both Kashamu and Adebutu had been locked in litigation over the ticket, as both emerged from two parallel congresses. Kashamu emerged from the congress conducted by the Dayo-led group, while Adebutu emerged from the congress conducted by the Sikirulai Ogundele-led faction, backed by the NWC.

But, INEC recognised the list of candidates that emerged from the congress conducted by the Dayo-led group. The electoral body explained that it accepted candidates from Kashamu’s camp “in compliance with a subsisting court judgment that pronounced them as right candidates”. INEC added that it recognised the candidates because their names were recognised by the courts.

Despite the court judgment, the NWC vowed not to have anything to do with Kashamu. It insisted that Adebutu remained the candidate of the party. Kashamu ran the governorship campaign without support from the NWC. The Adebutu group struck an alliance with Allied Peoples Movement (APM), the platform on which aggrieved member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) contested the 2019 elections.

But, Kashamu insists that members of the Adebutu group are no longer in the PDP because they had signed an agreement with another party in 2019. He said: “They signed a binding and subsisting three-year agreement with the APM in Ogun State, which was publicly announced on March 7, 2019; few days to the governorship election. They have just done a year and the agreement will lapse in 2022. These elements have neither repudiated the agreement nor have they formally returned to the PDP.”

However, a lawyer has dismissed Kashamu’s argument. He said during elections, political parties can come together for the purpose of winning election without losing their party identities. He said it is permissible in law because “the Adebutu group entered into an agreement with APM for the purpose of election and so did not renounce their membership of the PDP”.

Kashamu has threatened to fight Dayo to the end. He described Dayo as a bad leader and a greedy politician without conscience. The senator has also vowed to challenge the illegality and injustice within the ambits of the law and other internal mechanisms of the party.

He said: “I was never opposed to any reconciliatory move by the party; there was never a genuine reconciliation move with other faction led by Ladi Adebutu. I viewed the reconciliation move as imperative but with a condition that Ladi Adebutu should publicly repudiate the three-year agreement he had with the APM”.

He added: “Instead of Bayo to embrace openness and transparency, he chose to sidestep everyone and went behind to betray the party structure and purportedly sold it. I have never opposed any reconciliatory move because I know a tree does not make a forest. But, having shown his hands, Dayo cannot preside over any reconciliatory move. He cannot even be part of it because he does not have the integrity to do so. Rather, it should be championed by those who have the trust and confidence of the two main tendencies. The national leadership of the party is in a better position to call everyone, hear from them and resolve the issues in order for the PDP to move forward in Ogun State.

“Reconciliation is a process. Parties have to meet, discuss and agree on the modalities and terms of the settlement. There was no way he would think that just because he was the state chairman, he could decide for all the leaders, elders and stakeholders.”

On the purported agreement by Dayo, Kashamu said: “Any agreement that he signed with anyone would not stand. Doing so after he was suspended for anti-party activities render the whole move a nullity. It can never work. When we get to that bridge, we would cross it. He is trying hard to justify the money he was paid to betray all the party leaders and executives.”

But, Dayo has advised Kashamu to either flow with the wind of reconciliation blowing in the party or be left in the cold. He said Kashamu should know that the era of acting as the sole proprietor or de-facto owner of Ogun PDP has gone for good. He said the opposition party was already charting a new course of action where the party is owned and controlled by the people and not just an individual.

Dayo described his removal as the height of illegality, null and void. He said by the virtue of being the party chairman, he is a member of National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party and no organ of the party, except the national leadership, can discipline him. He said: “Kashamu is not a member of NEC, and that is why all that they have done was null and void. None of the people in the party secretariat is a member of Ogun State PDP executive committee. Bamgbose who is now calling himself the acting Chairman is the Assistant Auditor. They are all bunch of jesters and irritants. They are only doing a paid job for their master.

“The truth is that I remain Ogun PDP chairman. I was being bullied and attacked by Kashamu’s loyalists because the senator had told me to back off from my ongoing reconciliation moves with the Adebutu group and end the 10-year needless crisis. What actually happened was that I wrote a letter to the lawyer representing the party, debriefing him. I told him that we will no longer need his services because the other group under Adebutu had reached out to us for reconciliation and that negotiation is ongoing. We have agreed to share the party’s position between the two groups in the coming congress.

“However, when Kashamu learned about this development from the party lawyer, he asked me to back off, but I told him that time has come to reason with ourselves and unite the party. I said it is only a fool that will continue to do the same thing the same way and expect a different result. I told him that our losses in 2011, 2015 and 2019 were because of this division and needless infightings which we must bury once and for all.

“I told him that a good leader who cares for his followers cannot continue to run a one-man show but Kashamu will want none of this. He even sent some emissaries to me to sign a document for INEC that we have conducted the state congress, but I refused. Who could have done anything of such during this lockdown?

“It was because I insisted that it is about time peace reigned in Ogun PDP that Kashamu ordered his boys to be writing all manner of falsehood against me. God knows that I never collected a dime from anyone. I just wanted what is best for this party that I have been in since it was founded. Kashamu should, however, note that it is either he embraces the reconciliation moves or be left in the cold. PDP is greater than an individual. As I complete my eight-year tenure, what I wished most to leave behind is a united and formidable PDP.”

The Chairman of the Registered Political Parties in Ogun State, Mr Oaposi Oginni, advised Kashamu to quit the political stage in peace and stop disturbing the peace of political actors. Oginni, who described Kashamu as an expired politician, said: “it is worrisome that Senator Buruji Kashamu is not ashamed of himself as black sheep of Ogun State political family”. He said it is on record that Kashamu fought nearly every known political leader in Ogun, including, Obasanjo, Daniel, Adebutu and a host of others for selfish reasons.