The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has urged the Special Reconciliation Committee of the South-West Peoples Democratic Party to apportion blames to whoever contributed to divisions in the states including himself, if they found him to have done anything wrong.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Taiwo Adisa, quoted Makinde to have said this on Friday while receiving the Eyitayo Jegede-led Committee at the Governor’s Office, Ibadan.
The governor, however, said he was not sure if the reconciliation of the warring factions in Osun State whose governorship poll was just two months away was not too late.
He, however, urged the committee to do their best to remedy the situation and to move very fast to resolve the crisis within Lagos State PDP as well.
Makinde added that the Eyitayo Jegede-led committee needed to do its best to reconcile all aspirants in the just concluded state congress and governorship primary election in the two states.
He equally promised to give the committee all the needed support to have a hitch-free assignment.
“For Osun, I don’t know if it is not really too late but you have to move very fast to see what you can do. We have an election coming up in eight weeks, and if we don’t get the people together, it will just be a case of a house divided against itself, which won’t be able to stand.
“For Lagos, I personally spent a lot of time with them but at the end of the day, I believe the outcome of their state congress, rather than pull the party together, actually exacerbated the division within the party.
“They still have quite a bit of time because elections in Lagos won’t hold in another 10 months. So, I will say that we still have the opportunity to pull all of those people involved together.
“One thing I will also advise is, don’t be afraid to speak truth to power. The NWC put this committee together and if you think they have done more harm to the unity of the party in some of these states, don’t be afraid to let them know so that they can make the necessary amendments. And if, on the other hand, you feel any other person (including me) has influenced things out there without having the correct situation of things on the ground, let us know.
“If we are not able to gain the confidence of Nigerians so much that we cannot put our house in order, you will see apathy in the forthcoming elections. They will just basically stay at home. So, we have quite a lot to do to demonstrate to Nigerians that we are able to unite and bridge the trust gap between the ordinary people and our party. So, we look forward to more governors being produced by the PDP from the South-West zone.”
Jegede had earlier assured the governor that the committee would do everything to ensure success in the assignment given to it.
“We believe that the people are waiting for the PDP government not only at the federal level but also in our respective states and part of our efforts is to make this dream come to fruition.
“We, on our own part, are going for the assignment with a very clean heart. We are going to work assiduously to ensure that our people work together; the need for unity and harmony within the party. If there is no unity, there will be problems and that is why we are taking these pre-emptive steps to ensure there is no division within the family of the PDP,” he added.
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