A former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, yesterday, attributed the protracted leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the absence of a father figure in the main opposition party.
The PDP has been engulfed in a leadership crisis for several months with no signs of abating as Senators Ahmed Makarfi and Ali Modu Sheriff both lay claim to the chairmanship seat of the former ruling party.
Weighing in on the crisis, Mr. Daniel, who was a two-term governor of Ogun on the platform of PDP, pleaded with Makarfi and Sheriff to come together for the party to regain its lost glory.
Daniel, who spoke in a live radio interview monitored in Abeokuta, the state capital, expressed regrets that the PDP lacked spirit as currently constituted.
According to him, the PDP crisis deepened because the party now lacked a father figure contrary to what obtained in the past.
While stressing that he was not sympathetic to any of the factional leaders struggling for recognition as the national chairman of the PDP, OGD as he is fondly called by admirers, noted that he had relationship with the major actors in the crisis while serving as governor, hence, his neutral stance.
“I have relationship with all of them. So, the issue for me is not to say I’m in one side. The issue is if the party is going to regain its lost glory, the two sides must work together. And that is what I have always maintained.
“The road to victory has no room for divisionism and once a party is not in a position to resolve the line of division, then we are wasting time.
“Look, don’t let us forget that there is also a big crisis in APC. But I give it to that party. Why? Because they have managed, one way or the other, to keep that division in-house. Of course, you and I know what the facts are but all of them behave in public. And that is actually the key to victory”, Daniel said.
