A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Edo State Commissioner in the Public Complaints Commission (PCC), Oladele Bankole-Balogun has called on the governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki to practically engage leaders and stakeholders of the party to chart the way forward for the party.
According to the report by Vanguard News Nigeria, Bankole-Balogun was reacting to the crisis rocking the PDP over the integration of members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who defected to the PDP with the governor.
He called on the governor to play the role of a true leader by calling the leaders of the party for on the table discussion for a way forward having in mind the salvaging role the PDP plays when he was booted out of the APC.
He said: “As a PDP stakeholder, I am compelled to make my comments on the situation in Edo state, not minding whose ox is gored. The current impasse in Edo State has again shown the worst in human character, scheming, evil, greed and disposition.
“The impasse in Edo is avoidable and unacceptable. The buck stops at the top.
“Godwin Obaseki carried the hopes and aspirations of millions of people. He has a solid pedigree, educational background and a decent exposure to life beyond Edo state.
“It is therefore shocking that he has not called on these life experiences to bring about interaction and integration with the people who saved his face and the few hundreds of his supporters who joined the PDP having been made totally ostracised and impotent by the APC.”
He said “The people goading the Governor to be a hardliner unrepentant, disrespectful of the legal course of events and unappreciative of the people who made the PDP attractive are evil, desperate and of the worst species of human kind.
“I have always maintained that considering the exceptional circumstances of the governor’s rescue from shame and political oblivion by the PDP, he ought to go over and above board to ensure understanding with those who made his new platform attractive. Politics is an endless game of negotiations.
“This is more so that those who came with him did not make any statistical significance to the fortunes of the PDP at the first test, the 2020 general elections.
“Sadly, even his Deputy Governor turned out to be a mere paper tiger.(his electoral performance alludes to this)
“Mr. Governor needs to get back to the round table with genuine stakeholders who stood in the gap during the days of famine, not opportunistic punters and fair weather leaders.”
He said the governor was familiar with all the leaders and members of the PDP when he needed them to win his re-election and that he is shocked that the same governor is now pretending not to know the same leaders and members he was communicating with before the election.
“He should be the leader of all PDP not create and stoke factionalism.
“It is not too late for this Governor to be overcome by the Holy Spirit to do the right thing. The tough man is that who realises he has gone on a frolic of his own and retraces his steps.”
