I remain substantive chairman of Lagos PDP – Olorunoje

Jamiu Yisa

The factional chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kamaldeen Olorunoje, has declared himself as the substantive chairman of the party in the state.

Olorunoje, who said this while reacting to the vote of confidence passed on Captain Olatunji Shelle by the party executive last Wednesday, described the exercise as a ruse.

He insisted that only a few members of the party were still behind Shelle.

He declared that there is no way his group, being the majority, would sit together with those in the minority and led by Shelle.

Speaking further, Olorunoje said he deliberately avoided coming to the office the day Shelle was reinstated, and tasked him to identify those who purportedly gave him the confidence vote, which he claimed were 29 out of 45 exco members of the party.

“The day we took the decision to suspend him, we called the press and we identified ourselves one by one and we were in the majority. Shelle should have done the same thing when he appeared because I watched him on television.

“I deliberately stayed away from the office that day in order to avoid breakdown of law and order because that is what he wanted to happen so that they would say that we are the trouble makers, which has been their claim all along,” he said.

Olorunoje, who recalled that both himself and Shelle had appeared before the state Commissioner of Police to pledge to keep the peace, said it was now clear that the Shelle group had broken the accord by forcing themselves into the secretariat for the said exercise of confidence vote on Shelle.

While he insisted that he was not prepared to sit down with Shelle to resolve anything as enjoined by the NWC, Olorunoje, however, expressed his willingness to appear before the national leadership of PDP any time he and his group were summoned to do so.

“You should have asked him to show you the letter the NWC wrote to him on the crisis. They asked him to bring peace to the party by calling everybody together. We are not sitting with him. There is no way those in the majority would sit together with, or bow to the wishes of those in minority,” he said.