Can we know you better sir?
My names are Honourable Dauda Ademola Lawal at the same time State Chairman of factional Accord party in Oyo State when I say factional Accord party, you know by the time we conducted our congress, we conducted our own at Olubadan Stadium while other faction led by Wahab Oyelade conducted their own at Green Spring hotel though, we supposed to do everything together but when they saw they cannot match us so they made a U-turn and quickly did their own at Green Spring hotel so, immediately we conducted that congress we sent our list to Abuja, which was accepted by the national headquarter of the Accord party.
Accord Party is a registered political party like any other party registered by Independent National Electoral Commission; INEC so, in view of this there is no any dispute within Accord Party, it is only that there are some disgruntled elements in Accord Party, they are the ones that caused this problem within the Accord Party because they are self-centered, there is no crisis in Accord Party, everybody still accept our father; Senator/Chief Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja as our leader and we respect him very much , we cannot rule that one out, if he had adopted the style of Late Chief Adedibu, things could have been settled long time ago, if the day we conducted our congress though they convinced him to come down to their congress at Green Spring hotel and Chief Ladoja used about fifteen minutes so also we are expecting him at Olubadan Stadium, if he just drove down to us that day, you know all of us we drove down to Ondo Street and he commanded other people there and we sit on a round-table and he said let us share these posts; there wouldn't have been hullabaloo but there is no such thing done and as you are seeing now we wanted to hold our meeting last two weeks on the 29th, it is because of him we announced this thing on radio, that we wanted to hold our meeting there, you see, there is no cause for alarm, there is nothing disturbing him coming down to us that day we can't say he is not our leader , we would all welcome him that day maybe the one we held at Expoyo we could have treated everything together that day we will sit down, to deliberate; what is the problem, we will have the meeting from there , some of our personalities would even followed him down there, whereby he will send some of the people of the other side, he cannot do as if he wanted to support one side and leave the other side unfatheredly or not being supported, he has to be a father of all, he must be a father of all, we are not fighting him, it is just those disgruntled elements, those who caused the downfall of the party in 2011 and 2015, that is what we are arguing against, we cannot just open our eyes again and allow the same thing to happen, there is no problem as such and if at all we want to hold another meeting tomorrow he can come down there and embrace all of us, things will just be settled amicably.
Sir, we learnt after the dissolution of the Accord Party Local Governments' Chairmen did not wanted to leave is the major cause of the imbroglio, what do you have to say to this ?
That is just a blackmail-news, they just wanted to blackmail them, and it is not so, if they said those people wanted to go the national headquarter of the party headed by Nalado, since the inception of Accord they have never conducted a national convention of the party, at the National level, they spent more than they supposed to spend , what happens at the national level is still what is happening at the state level and the local government , if someone now come to say their term has expired, what are you going to do about those at the national level, initially there was a circular letter signed by the administrative secretary sent to all the Local government Chairmen of the party and the administrative secretary is not their boss, they are all under the state-Chairman of the Accord Party,from whose office that directive supposed to come from and to be signed by the Accord Party State Chairman only, if any circular suppose to come at all. that is the practice, now the administrative secretary signed a circular letter instructing all the Accord Party Local Government Chairmen to relinquish their posts and that they had established a caretaker committee of sole administrator, which is not recognized by the constitution of the Accord Party, this made them to write a protest letter to the national headquarter, to ask whether they are aware of the circular- letter of the dissolution of their tenure, and the national headquarter responded to it by sending and giving a letter to dispute it and refuted that they are not aware and that they had not given the instruction of such nature neither backing it up and this letter was sent to the Oyo State Accord Party Office of the State Chairman of the party, that they should reinstate or restore them back immediately and that there should not be any care-taker committee or sole administrator in the local government , this people now called them to go and implement the directive(order) from the national headquarter, and they ; the state executive now said once they had serve the chairmen the earlier circular out ; it will be a shame on them to do as directed by the national headquarter, that is to rewrite the reinstate letter is not possible, is the administrative secretary; a paid staff of the party ,what right does he has to take that sole decision, you see all these is what Chief Rasheed Ladoja supposed to handle , by coming in, to settle it, once there was already an order from the national headquarter to reinstate these chairmen, you it is now the duty of the state party leaders to call both sides, okay! you the administrative secretary since you know there is a letter from the national headquarter to reinstate them, you know that letter from the national headquarter has superseded the initial circular letter you served these party chairmen, on dissolution so, carry out the order of the national headquarter with immediate effect but nothing of such was done and this is the bone of contention and of course, you see there is no party in this state or national level that does not have factions; if you want to cheat me aia will kick against it and we may disagree to agree, and now if that is to happen; the next thing is that we need to come to round table, that is why all the chairmen are protesting, you see we should not misinterpret what is on the ground, we have parallel congress, we are at the Olubadan Stadium and the other was at Green Spring hotel and neither they protest or go to court or challenged the congress conducted by us nor we challenged their neither we take them to court on this, it was those chairmen, the sacked chairmen that went to court to challenged the party executive, for their dissolution, to request for their mandate, not the two sides of factions of the party so, if some people are now saying they won the court case, court case between who against who ? the battle is between the chairmen and the state party executive, that the action taken by the administrative-secretary is illegal and should be declared non and void, that is their request.
I; Dauda Lawal with my faction did not take Wahab Faction to court. For example Alimotu Sherrif versus Markafi in the PDP some factions conducted their congress at Port Harcourt while the other conducted theirs at Abuja so Alimotu Sheriff now challenged Markafi they went to court, Markafi too challenged Alimotu Sheriff, the too of them, firstly the same Markafi won it they declared him Chairman, Alimotu Sheriff went to Appeal, Appeal Court now say Alimotu Sheriff is the Chairman of PDP, boldly written at the national level of the PDP , boldly written, underline this, and Markafi now says they did not want to accept and went to the Supreme Court, to challenge it , that is what they are now on.
It is not that all states chairmen went to court, it is the local chairmen that went to court, to seek for their mandate so, it is two things on ground; two parallel congresses, no one is challenging the other, if the chairmen then that is the court accepted their prayer then that means all the chairmen at our side will step down and the other faction's chairmen will step down so both of us wouldn't have had chairmen so the congresses held by both factions could have been declared non and void because they would have installed them.
Now, that Chief Ladoja has won the court case.......(interrupted)?
Won what?, you see , I said the congress we conducted at Olubadan Stadium, where I was held as the state chairman of the Accord Party nobody challenged it and so also that of Green spring hotel nobody challenged it likewise, the Chairmen ; sacked chairmen were the one that challenged that the congress conducted by Basiru Lawal at the Green Spring should be declared non and void and it is of no effect but instead of the court then to look into that aspect the court did not do that , the court only dismissed their case and they did not say you Basiru Lawal you go ahead with or step down from, so there is no clear picture, you can go and read that judgement and the ruling of the court, you will see there is a lacuna (gap) somewhere.
Now that election is getting close come 2019; what are you doing lately to make sure this imbroglio does not cause problem for your party Accord?
Okay! thank you very much, it will not affect the election, if will could manage it properly, one; there are rooms for reconciliation and since we still have some time maybe, today, tomorrow, we can still reconcile together despite the fact we have two factions within the Accord Party , people from other parties have been coming to either , to brainstorm with either, they have been discussing with us , what is the modalities , everybody we are consulting , likewise at our leader's side too; some PDP and other parties' people have been going to him, to discuss , deliberate with him on the way forward for 2019, we too do not want to damage the party so, when we now see this, we thought we can have working relationship within each others, choose together some of them even thought they had done so much for the party so they are skeptical to leave Accord Party and don't forget when we say 'Rescue';It is to save something from collapse aside the fact that if you see my certificate you cannot see Rescue but Accord Party State Chairman, I have that certificate with me, so we are just factions within the party, APC too is factional as it has Lamist, AD, faction of the serving Minister, Ajimobi has his own faction called Seneco and others like that and nobody disturb one another , they are just trying make contact and mobilize people but at the time for their congress "water will finds its level.
But wouldn't there be a clash later?
That is lovely, you see what is going on now there are some people at the Supreme Court now ;Tribune of the 4th July 2017 published that there are some serving Ministers from Obasanjo Yar Adua to Goodluck regimes, they have merged together, they wanted to fathom the way forward, should they still remain in the PDP or what should be the option, you see there are five new political parties being registered lately; PPA, APDA, Young Progressive Party, New Generation Party, you see within these five parties there are still political undertone, you see as we say okay we come to our leader and he come to us, you see at the end of the day everybody may now be going towards the same trailer, say okay, this is where we are going, it may not be PDP, it may not be this or that but we may say in one voice let us go to this party, just to conquer the victory of the election overwhelmingly.
What is your message to the electorates?
The electorates should not have cause to fear or cause for alarm neither they should complain because during election before they go to the polling booth they must have known whom to vote for and now they have known the right from wrong and come 2019 election they are the ones to decide.
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