2023: PDP Issues Certificate of Returns to Adebutu, Mohammed, Uba, Lamido, Others

•Withholds Ebonyi, Kano certificates due to legal issues

•Ayu charges candidate to work hard, carry all along

Chuks Okocha

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, resolved the governorship crisis in Ogun State, when it gave the certificate of return of the governorship primary election to Oladipupo Adebutu.

Former spokesperson of former vice president in the 2019 presidential election, Segun Sowunmi, had claimed victory at the end of the governorship primaries in state.

With the resolution of the crisis, Adebutu was among those handed over the certificate of return as the PDP gubernatorial candidate.

In a brief remark after collecting the certificate of return. Adebutu said, “It is now a duty for all concerned to go forward and do reconciliation and I can assure you that we have already embarked on that duty. We will continue to reach out to those that feel that they have a grouse.

 “I’m sure that with time, we shall have total reconciliation and we shall even extend hands of fellowship beyond the party and make it  an intra party thing, because we can even see fellow brothers from other parties trying to join our party now and I am sure that after their convention, we shall be welcoming them,” he stressed.

Others that were issued certificate of return by the PDP include the former chairman of the PDP in Jigawa State, Col. Agbo Kefas, David Ombugabu from Nasarawa State, was issued certificate of return as the party candidates.

Also, yesterday, the party issued certificates to its returning governors as governorship standard bearers in the general election for next year general election.

Those issued with the gubernatorial certificate of return included the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State and Ahmed Fintiri of Adamawa State.

The son of the former governor of Jigawa State, Mustapha Sule Lamido, was issued the governorship certificate for Jigawa State.

But the party withheld the certificates of return for Kano State and Ebonyi States candidates, due to some unresolved legal issues as a result of factional crisis in the two states.

Speaking after issuing the certificates to 26 governorship candidates, National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, charged them to carry everyone that contested against them.

According to Ayu, “Everybody, who contested with you is also chosen, you must carry every member of the aspirants community along, because they contributed  in mobilising and growing our party.”

Ayu said yesterday’s exercise was “partly a recognition of your hard work, Many of you have contributed enormously to the growth and development of this party and I want to thank you for your loyalty to the party. I want to congratulate you for this achievement.

“But remember, many are called but few are chosen. A few of you have been chosen to be our flag bearer in the forth coming elections. I want to sincerely thank you for the work you put in. And we hope you will continue to hard work, because this is just the first step.

“We believe that the PDP will go back to his winning ways. When we started in 1999, we were able to produce 21 governors, we grew that number in 2003 to 28 and sustained it at 28 up to 2007.

“Unfortunately, we came through hard times and the number declined. Today, we have only 13 governors, for a political party of this nature. That is not good enough.

“All of you must, therefore, work very hard to reconcile with whoever opposed you, work with everybody carry everybody along, so that at the end of the day by next year, we should be able to come back to at least 25 governors,” he stated.