PDP not divided over Ogun guber candidate crisis: Showunmi

The factional governorship candidate of PDP in Ogun, Segun Showunmi, says all stakeholders and party members will accept the court’s verdict on its authentic 2023 gubernatorial flag bearer.

Mr Showunmi, in a statement on Tuesday, said there was no division in Ogun PDP.

He expressed optimism and confidence that he would be on the ballot in the governorship election in Ogun.

Mr Showumi expressed this belief following the Abuja Court of Appeal’s consequential order, dismissing a lower court’s ruling over jurisdiction to hear the suit between him, the PDP and others.

He noted that his campaign ahead of the 2023 governorship election would fully begin on September 28, adding that his style would be issues-based.

Mr Showunmi, a former spokesman for the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation in 2019, said he would run a “new deal” that would transform Ogun if elected.

While reiterating his acceptance of party supremacy at the national and state levels, Mr Showunmi explained that the primary election conducted by the Ladi Adebutu camp remained a charade and would not stand.

“A political party is the creation of the law and what gives it political the right to even claim it is a political party is its constitution and the grand law which is the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he stated. “No legally created organ can be given the wherewithal to act as if it doesn’t know that it is a creation of the law. I actually don’t think we are divided, to be fair. We both accept the supremacy of our national organs. My position is that whatever it is they called their primary is a charade, it can’t hold, and it can’t stand.”

He insisted that the primary election that produced “me as candidate followed all the extant laws of the country and in due season, they will definitely come to the point they have to come to.”

Mr Showunmi added that the Court of Appeal had given his camp the first favourable judgment and expressed hope of being declared the authentic flagbearer. 

(NAN)