ANAYO EZUGWU 
ANAYO EZUGWU reports that the aborted state congress of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State over different consensus lists has caused more confusion for the party
When the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fixed Saturday, October 16 for the conduct of its state congress across nine states of the federation, many political watchers were optimistic that the congress would restore peace in the crisis-torn state chapters of the main opposition party. However, the congress failed to live up to expectations as the exercise in many of the states were marred by violence.
The party conducted the state congress in Lagos, Oyo, Adamawa, Kebbi, Borno, Kogi, Osun, Kwara and Ebonyi states. In Lagos State, the congress was abandoned as a result of gunshots within the Tafawa Balewa Square venue of the congress.
The gunshots forced delegates and observers to scamper for safety. Despite the confusion, some of the delegates accosted around the venue were seen holding a list, claiming that the congress was concluded, with Dr. Amos Fawole, named as the chairman, while Barr. Wale Onileere and Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour emerged as deputy chairman and secretary, respectively. Some other members of the party alleged that some persons, who wanted to rig the congress, disrupted the exercise and it could not proceed further from the accreditation level. According to them, delegates from 18 out of the 20 local governments in the state have been accredited before the disruption.
“Their intention was to rig. A lot of fraudulent acts took place in their bid to rig the outcome of the congress, but the officials got the wind of it. For instance, the main gate was forced open, after accreditation was done. It became very obvious that there would be over-voting and that the venue had been infiltrated. What I saw was terrible.
There were even gunshots,” they said. Before the gunshots started, a member of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) and former Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Bode George had advised the national election committee to postpone the congress over lack of time. He said it would be dangerous for the delegates and observers if the congress exceeds 6.pm.
“I will advise that they have to watch their time. Unfortunately, there is a security breakdown already because there are a lot of people here and who are not going to participate. Some of them are observers and they should have been directed on where to sit. But having said that, what we want is that it has to be a carnival and you can see everybody is just moving around and dancing.
“But when it gets dark, the most sensible thing would be to postpone it till the end of the national convention. You cannot do it in the night here because this is Lagos especially around this area once it is nightfall no one can guarantee what will happen,” he said.
But the secretary of the national electoral committee, Senator Abiodun Olujinmi, alleged that some chieftains of the party in the state did not want the congress to hold. She said the committee did its bit to ensure that the congress takes place. “We have been accrediting people and we have been able to do 18 local governments out of 20.
Some of them are not yet here but we want to start so that at least we can get them to vote. “But it is very apparent that some people don’t want this process to hold. It is clear that some people want it truncated and it is also very clear that some people want to vote. There is a clash of interest but we are trying as much as possible to see what we can do about it.
All through yesterday, we were about how to resolve it but then we couldn’t and that is why we came out to vote. If not we would have just read out the list and get done with it,” she said. A chieftain of the party and chairmanship candidate, Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse said the party’s congress was disrupted because of a ‘Unity list.’
He said: “The list had one Dr. Fawole as the preferred candidate for Lagos State PDP chairman, excluding popular candidates. Delegates became alarmed when they saw people using the list to fill their ballot papers and felt that the result of the congress had been pre-determined by the preferred list.” According to Pearse, the apparent compromise of the fair and open elections led to protests and a mass walkout by delegates. “For me, this is the end of the line. I will no longer stand aside and watch any leader disenfranchise me and other members of the party.”
In a similar vein, an assistant publicity secretary, Mabel Oboh said what happened at the congress was a huge disgrace for the party. She said it was obvious that some elements came with the intention to rig the congress. She said: “To begin with, getting the contestants into the venue was almost impossible due to the unruly illegal crowd that came to the venue suddenly. People were almost squashed to death. The party’s security tried their best to control the crowd. But eventually, they became overwhelmed by the crowd that forced the gates open, giving access to all manners of people, which should not have been the case. As we all know, accredited voters, contestants and Congress officials, INEC officials, approved press officials are the ones allowed into the venue. “But the venue was infiltrated by non-delegates, so there would have been obvious over-voting, and we all know what that would have meant.
The crowd was way over 4,000 people. Fights broke out, with women and men throwing punches at each other for whatever reasons most of us could not fathom. It looked like a pre-arranged thing. “Another unusual thing that happened was that there were various unity lists of contestants with each of them omitting the names of some contestants that were duly cleared and issued screening certificates.
There was tension everywhere. It was really like a time bomb. So the trigger was the gunshots that started raining down everywhere. It was really a blessing that the Congress was cancelled based on the circumstances. “However, it was a huge shame that the congress was not successful after all the preparations.
The people behind what happened are all enemies of the progress of the party and Nigeria. It was a shameless act. Nigerians, I’ve noticed, are very quick to blame those at the top when things are not going well. But it is high time the ordinary citizens start looking inward and make up their minds if we all desire a nation called Nigeria that we can all be proud of.
“If yes, they should stop our unpatriotic leaders from using them to achieve their selfish desires. Nigeria belongs to us all and it will take every one of us from top to bottom to play our part if Nigeria is ever to heal again.” Meanwhile, the party has blamed the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the disruption and abortion of the exercise. The party alleged that APC sponsored gunmen to attack the process.
The party in a statement by its outgoing spokesman, Taofik Gani, said unlike the Lagos APC, the PDP was having a unity congress with all interests converged at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) before it was attacked. “The chairman of the national electoral committee had started giving out ballot papers to the delegates to start voting when suddenly gunshots were heard at different angles.
The delegates were orderly until after the gunshots which scared a lot to leave the venue. We do not believe these gunshots came from PDP members. The shooters can only be our political opponents. We charge the police to fish out these persons,” it said. According to the statement, the chairman of the election committee has gone ahead to declare the congress as aborted and a new date to be announced. In preparation for the cancelled congress, a screening committee came in from Abuja.
The team did not reveal the venue of the screening to the candidates until the last minute. The goal of the national leadership was to birth a strong and credible PDP that can battle APC for the control of Lagos State. With the aborted congress in Lagos, the national leadership of the PDP would be returning to the drawing board in its bid to restore peace in the state chapter of the party and reposition it for the 2023 general election. But whether this target would be achieved is yet to be seen.
