The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ogun State has announced that it is not aware of the aspiration of former speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, to vie for the state’s governorship seat.
Making the disclosure at the weekend at the opposition party’s secretariat in Abeokuta was Chief Bayo Dayo, the chairman of PDP in Ogun State.
This is coming few hours before the PDP holds the primary election of its governorship candidate.
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According to the party chieftain, Bankole was not one of PDP’s 11 aspirants contesting in today’s governorship primary.
Dayo added that the former speaker of House of Representatives had yet to purchase the expression of interest form from the state secretariat of the PDP, which would have formally announced him as an aspirant in today’s governorship primary.
He alleged that Bankole had since 2011 when he lost his re-election bid into the House of Representatives distanced himself from the party.
The Ogun PDP chairman informed that he was not a party to the alleged plan to pick Bankole as the consensus governorship candidate of the party.
He said: “I am still saying that I am not aware that Dimeji Bankole is contesting the governorship in Ogun State.
“The money we are using to run this party is enormous. Somebody cannot just say because he has been to Harvard, Cambridge or Oxford, he is coming to lead us overnight.
“It is not going to happen. So, if you are contesting, you must come to the state secretariat and obtain an expression of interest form.
“Those forms that are given to us by the various aspirants are the forms we are using for all these primaries and congresses. We do not have special funds for all these things.
“It is the money contributed by all these aspirants that we are using. The arrangement about Bankole, I do not know anything about it.”
Dayo said unlike the other governorship aspirants of the PDP in the state, Bankole had failed to show seriousness about his aspiration to become the party’s standard-bearer.
He said Bankole had only been looking for a ‘short cut’ to become the PDP governorship candidate instead of going through due process.
“When you see somebody, who is only trying to take a short cut, I can tell you, there is no short cut to a good job. If you want to do a good job, you start from the scratch.
“You must follow due process. This young man is not following due process. He is only looking for a short cut and there is no short cut in politics.
“I can tell you today that whatever arrangement is going to happen, I am still the chairman of the party, I must know the arrangement, even though it is coming from our leaders at the national level, I will still at least be an observer at whatever meeting where they are going to have a tangible discussion,” Dayo said.
