The consensus crisis which had split the Ekiti State Working Committee, SWC, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been laid to rest as the reconciled members have pledged to move the party forward.
A four-man delegation of the party's national leadership which met with the SWC in Ado Ekiti yesterday said all contending issues in the Ekiti PDP, including consensus and the series of suspensions had been resolved.
Leader of the delegation, Ambassador Umar Damagum, told journalists after the meeting that the party was making progress in its bid to return to the Ekiti Government House in 2014 through defeating the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, in the state.
Damagum said: "I am happy and confident that we are more than resolved after this meeting in Ekiti PDP to take what belongs to us in 2014," clarifying that "when the time comes, the leadership of our party will do what is right."
It would be recalled that crisis broke out in Ekiti PDP following the constitution by its chairman, Mr Makanjuola Ogundipe, of an 11-member consensus committee saddled with the responsibility of selecting the party's candidate for the 2014 governorship election.
While a section of the SWC loyal to an aspirant and former Governor Ayodele Fayose kicked and announced suspension of the chairman, Ogundipe in turn, suspended the SWC members alongside Fayose from the party for insubordination and indiscipline.
Damagum, however, said yesterday that the PDP family had resolved the suspensions handed down to some members of the party in Ekiti, which he said had been lifted by PDP South-West leadership and confirmed by the National Working Committee.
Ogundipe, flanked by members of the SWC, advised party members and aspirants to always concur with whatever position taken by the leadership in order not to erode the party's supremacy.
The state PDP boss said the newly registered APC, "is dead on arrival", adding: "APC is just a new baby who cannot stand the heat of this election."
He said the name change, which APC represented in Ekiti State was "simply because the members and leaders are ashamed of their past."
National Mirror