‘We”ll no longer tolerate any manipulation in Ogun PDP’

FORMER Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole has declared that members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State would no longer tolerate any form of manipulation in the forthcoming congresses.

The national leadership of the party had scheduled to hold congresses across the states of the federation next month.

The former Speaker made the party members’ position known while hosting hundreds of members of the Dimeji Bankole Movement (DMB), drawn from the 20 local government areas of the state, to a New Year party at his Abeokuta home.

Bankole who was apparently reacting to the outcome of the last primaries of the party held in 2014, insisted that any attempt to manipulate the process would be vehemently opposed.

He said the repeat of the last congresses in the state might spell “doom” for the party and its leadership, stressing that the race towards the 2019 polls had begun with the scheduled party congresses in February.

Bankole said: “It’s almost two years now. I commend your perseverance; I now know the difference. The game we played then, I have told them whatever they do, I won’t leave PDP. But that is past tense. If they try it this time, they will smell their burnt clothes.

“The journey has started, we won’t tolerate any nonsense anymore in Ogun State. But what will happen in the next few months will determine all that.”

In his address, the State Secretary of the DBM, Hon. Johnson Olu Fatoki, said that the party in the state was dying and needed resuscitation.

Fatoki however, warned that if the party failed to act properly and bounce back to life, members of the DBM would have no other choice than to go along with Bankole to any other political party of his choice.

He said: “Presently, we in the DBM belong to the PDP and not APC. But as we speak, DBM is independent. PDP is currently in coma and if possible, we’ll wake it up. But if it cannot be woken up, wherever our principal (Bankole) goes, is where we’ll go.”

“In 2019, DBM will produce senators and the governor because we stand for positive change and not for nonsense change. The change we have now is nonsense change and we stand for positive change,” the DBM State Secretary said.