7th December, 2014
Abiodun Onafuye/Abeokuta
Chief Bayo Dayo, Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Ogun State has declared that the former Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole is not among the aspirants of the party that will contest the governorship election primaries tomorrow in the State.
He disclosed that the party was not aware of the former Speaker’s aspiration to vie for the exalted seat.
The Peoples Democratic Party has fixed Monday for its governorship primary across the State.
The Party said Bankole was not one of its eleven aspirants that will be contesting in tomorrow’s primary election.
The party added that the former Speaker did not buy the expression of intent form from the State secretariat in Abeokuta, which would have formally announced him as an aspirant in the contest.
The State Party Chairman of the PDP, Chief Bayo Dayo disclosed this Sunday while addressing journalists at the party secretariat in Abeokuta.
He alleged that Bankole had since 2011 after losing his re-election bid into the House of Representatives, distanced himself from the party in the State.
He said he will never be a party to the alleged plan to pick the former Speaker as the consensus governorship candidate of the PDP in the State.
According to him, “I’m still saying that I am not aware that Dimeji Bankole is contesting the governorship in Ogun State. The money we are using to run this party is enormous. Some people have been doing that for years. Somebody cannot just say because he has been to Harvard, Cambridge or Oxford, he is coming to lead us overnight. It’s not going to happen.
” So, if you are contesting, you must come to the State secretariat and obtain an expression of interest form. Those funds that are given to us by the various aspirants are the forms we are using for all these primaries, congresses we are doing. We do not have special funds for all these things. It is the money contributed by all these aspirants that we are using. The arrangement about Dimeji Bankole, I do not know anything about it,” Dayo maintained.
The Chairman revealed that, unlike other governorship aspirants of the party in the State, Bankole had failed to show seriousness about his aspiration to become the party’s standard bearer.
He said that Bankole had only been looking for a “short cut” to become the PDP governorship candidate, instead of going through due process.
“If you want to contest the governorship of the State, it is only two months to election and two months to the election will you still be struggling when the aspirant should be going round the local government to tell the people what you will do?
“When you see somebody who is only trying to take a short cut, I can tell you there is no short cut to a good job. If you want to do a good job, you start from the scratch. You must follow due process. This young man is not following due process, he is only looking for a short cut and there is no short cut in politics.
“I can tell you today that whatever arrangement is going to happen, I’m still the Chairman of the party, I must know what the arrangement, even though, it is coming from our leaders at the national level, I will still, at least, be an observer at whatever meeting, where they are going to have a tangible discussion,” Dayo said.
Engr. Bayo Dayo however said that he could not stop any aspirant who had done the right thing from contesting for the tickets of the party, “but we will continue to say it that Dimeji Bankole did not obtain expression of interest form from Ogun State. Until that is obtained, I wouldn’t know him as one of our aspirants,” Dayo posited.
The former Speaker’s phone lines were not going through and he has not responded to the message sent to him.