Posted by on
Peoples Democratic Party members in the Igbogbo Constituency of Lagos State on Thursday suspended the Minister of Works, Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, from the party.
Peoples Democratic Party members in the Igbogbo Constituency of Lagos State on Thursday suspended the Minister of Works, Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, from the party.
They accused the minister of being part of a decision of the state leadership of PDP to suspend the first state chairman of the party, Chief Olorunfunmi Basorun, from the PDP.
Ogunlewe and Basorun are indigenes of the town, located a few kilometres from Ikorodu.
The development marks another twist in the crisis in the party since its defeat by the Alliance for Democracy in the 2003 general elections in the state.
Members of the party from the minister's constituency that comprises Wards C1 and C2, said that they had tolerated Ogunlewe since he defected from AD to PDP, for the sake of peace.
The Chairman of Ward C1, Mr. Lawrence Ashafa, alleged in a statement issued at the end of a PDP ward meeting held in Igbogbo on Thursday that Ogunlewe and his loyalists were allegedly dividing the party in Igbogbo since 2002.
'Since Ogunlewe joined the party, there has been no peace. He came into the party with his cronies in the AD and they constituted themselves into a faction, running parallel organisations at Ward C1 and Ward C2," Ashafa said.
He accused the minister of complicity in the setting up of a parallel local government area secretariat of the Network Alliance (a PDP caucus in the state) along Ayangburen Road in Ikorodu, to undermine the authorities of the 'authentic" PDP local government office situated at 26, Obafemi Awolowo Way in Ikorodu.
'This is a very serious offence and breach of the party's constitution."
Reacting to the development, Special Assistant to the Minister of Works, Mr. Ola Animasaun, said Basorun was a joker. Ogunlewe has not been suspended from PDP.
The minister, in line with his status in the party and as a serving minister, can only be suspended from the party at the state or national level and not at the ward level, which the Igbogbo Constituency is.
'The truth of the matter is that the party is no longer comfortable with Basorun, who was dismissed recently for ridiculing the party in the media. His travails began last December at an end-of- the-year-party in Lagos where he granted an interview to a broadcast media organisation saying, among others, that party members were incompetent in running the party.
'Unfortunately for him, party members got hold of the video, which they analysed, and came to the decision that his actions ran contrary to Article 14 of the PDP Constitution and he was summarily dismissed.
'The minister had no hand in his dismissal, which was due basically to the interview he granted. This so-called dismissal of Chief Ogunlewe from the party is a way of getting back at the minister. But it has failed because, following the suspension, Basorun is now an ordinary member of the PDP.
'In fact, we are no longer comfortably with him (Basorun) because he now associates more with the AD, where he is benefiting from government contracts."
The PUNCH, Friday, August 05, 2005