Primaries: Kwara PDP Denies Imposition Of Candidates

The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State has denied alleged imposition of candidates in the selection of those that will flag the party’s flags during the 2023 general elections.

The leaders of the party insisted that the consensus arrangement they adopted in picking the candidates for the various elective offices was unanimously agreed upon by the party’s stakeholders.

LEADERSHIP recalls that some youth in Offa, Offa local government area of the state, had  last weekend protested the adoption of Hon. Hassan Oyeleke as the party’s flag bearer  for the Ifelodun/Offa/Oyun federal constituency, accusing the PDP leadership of imposing Oyeleke on them.

Addressing newsmen at the PDP’s secretariat  in Offa, the Kwara South senatorial chairman of the party, Comrade Bisi Fakayode, said that it is the people that decided what they wanted.

Comrade Fakayode, who said the leadership of the party  held a meeting with the eight House of Representatives aspirants from the constituency on Friday, April 1, 2022, added that the meeting could not be concluded because of three new entrants.

He said another meeting scheduled for Saturday, April 2, 2022 was attended by all the eight aspirants and the Senatorial Central Working Committee members of the PDP.

“At the end, they resolved that a consensus candidate could not be picked among them, and they would not contemplate a primary election as the election could lead to bloodshed in Offa. In the circumstance, they would wish that the party leadership would just pick any of them; and they would all work for whoever was picked. They drafted the resolution and all the eight of them signed it,” Fakayode explained.

The party leader, who emphasized that five aspirants from Offa originally expressed interest in the House of Representatives seat, added that: “Three others joined later and they were accommodated. All the eight aspirants are qualified to fly our party’s flag, but only one can be picked at a time. That was what happened. There was no imposition from any quarter. The Kwara South senatorial leadership of the PDP accepts full responsibility for all the candidates that have so far emerged”.