Discord In Accord Party Over PDP Reconciliation

Reconciliation talks between the former governor of Oyo State, Senator Rasheed Ladoja and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have split his party, Accord Party, AP, in Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria.

This was because of the uncertainties over the next political destination of its leaders amid talks of their impending return to the PDP which many of them left to form the AP during the run up to the 2011 general elections.

The leader of the party in the state, Rasheed Ladoja, who months ago, announced his readiness to return to the PDP, retraced his steps after his supporters were allegedly schemed out of the ward and local government congresses held across the state to elect new executives for the party.

His failed bid to become the National Secretary of PDP, following the argument in some quarters that he cannot be granted the waiver he needed as a new returnee to the party, to contest for a party position, also contributed to the collapse of the much hyped reconciliation talks.

However, the future of the AP in Oyo is currently threatened by a crisis occasioned by PDP’s reconciliation talks. The party may have split into factions following the decision of some of its chieftains to return to their former party with or without Ladoja.

At the heart of the controversy is the election of some Accord Party members into executive party positions at ward and local government levels during the last party congresses held across the state.

Many of the party’s stalwarts who participated in the PDP congresses on the strength of the reconciliation talks failed to get elected, amid allegations that old PDP members were determined to shut the returning AP members out of the leadership of the party in the state.

The situation led to the emergence of a few Accord Party members, largely in the Oyo zone of the state, emerging as ward and local party executives, while majority of those who attempted to get elected were left to nurse their wounds, alleging that they were sidelined by former Governor Adebayo Alao Akala-led PDP leaders in the state.

Even AP members nominated by Ladoja for election into the state executive of the party, based on an alleged earlier agreement with PDP, failed to make the list of successful candidates as Akala loyalists swept all available positions at the end of the state congress.

Surprisingly, Ladoja’s wife, Mutiat Ladoja, emerged as an ex-officio member of the party. But that was not enough to stop Ladoja from calling off the reconciliation talks in spite of appeals for caution by some of his associates whose nominees made it into wards and LGA executives in some parts of the state.

Political Platform reliably gathered that following the stalemate in the talks between AP and the PDP in Oyo, some Ladoja associates have been mounting pressure on him to reopen talks with his former party.

Not ready to be cajoled into what he called a skewed arrangement, Ladoja is said to have told those urging him to have a rethink that he would have nothing to do with the PDP in Oyo until the party is freed from the shackles of Alao Akala and his faction.

This is the bone of contention between Ladoja and those who want him to return to PDP unconditionally. The crisis became public on the heels of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s visit to Ladoja’s Bodija, Ibadan, home.

The visit by Obasanjo, rather than unite the AP in his quest for reconciliation with the PDP, further fuelled the fire of discord in the Accord family.

Shocked that Ladoja, who had refused their entreaty to reopen talks with the PDP in Oyo, will host a delegation made up of leaders of another faction of the party in the state, some of Ladoja’s associates were embittered by his action.

Angry with their leader, the aggrieved AP leaders accused Ladoja of romancing a faction of the party while refusing to consider their own interests in the other faction.

—Jamiu Yisa