Jandor to blame for crisis in Lagos PDP –Aivoji

Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Hon. Philips Olabode Aivoji has said that he remains the Chairman of the party, and that Hon. Tai Benedict is still his Deputy. Aivoji stated that those behind the current crisis in the state, which he said culminated in the “illegal” pronouncement that he had been suspended from office would soon be dealt with. In this interview with OLADIPUPO AWOJOBI, Aivoji shed more light on the issues affecting the Lagos State PDP. Excerpts:

How would you react to your suspension by the State Working Committee of your party?

That is not true. We had a press conference recently and we made it clear there. There was a joint meeting of Central Working Committee (CWC) and non-CWC. We ratified that myself and the State Deputy Chairman of the party, Hon. Tai Benedict remain the officers of the party. They also passed a vote of confidence in us. We are in control, and we are in the majority, few people cannot just come together to hold the party to ransome. It’s unacceptable, it’s wrong and condemnable. I am still in control of the party, those dissidents would surely be dealt with appropriately.

What is really happening because there were reports that you and Hon. Benedict had been suspended and that Hon. Sunday Olaifa is now the acting Chairman of the party in Lagos State?

How can Sunday Olaifa convey a meeting, when the Chairman is still in office, the deputy and secretary are still in office. Where did they derive that power from, it’s unconstitutional. What they did is against the party. They approached the court themselves and they disobeyed the court by doing what they are not supposed to do. We will meet in the court, the court has told them that status quo ante remains untill the matter is decided by the court. They are just making a noise, causing unnecessary anxiety. If you call all the leaders of our party in the state they would tell you that we are still the recognised and authentic exco and we still hold our meetings regularly. Whoever is behind those pranks cannot get away with them.

One of the allegations against you was that you were doing anti-party activities and even campaigned for the Governorship Candidate of an opposition party in the state

That is not true, go and check, everybody knows my polling unit, throughout the general elections, I won for the PDP. They are just evil people that are causing problems in the party.

But what is really happening in the Lagos State PDP because people say there is no unity in the chapter, and that this is why they lose elections everytime and we saw how the whole thing went during the last general elections

This is a political party, usually, you would have dissidents and people who want to hijack everything, but they cannot get away with it, I can assure you on that. As I speak to you, I am a national officer of the party and it is clear that at the state level nobody can remove a national officer. That was why they wanted to appoint fictitious officers, we have taken action on them. For you to know that all the leaders are with me, call any of the elders or members of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the party, they would tell you that we are together. We know the dissidents and the laws would take its course on them.

Where do you think this is coming from because we know that someone like a chieftain of the party in the state, Chief Bode George, did not support the Governorship Candidate of the party in the state, Dr. Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran aka Jandor and even your party’s Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar?

By the time you do your investigative journalism properly, you would know the people behind all these. Chief Bode George is our leader in the party, very respectable and a good party man. We have worked together for so many years and he knows how the party runs. The unfortunate thing is that when you get someone into the party and within six months the person becomes the Governorship Candidate, what do you expect. The way he behaved in his previous party that drove him from the party to the PDP, he thought it would be business as usual. The PDP is organised, it’s a national party and we have ways of doing things. No genuine PDP members would agree with what Jandor was doing, very disrespectful and his behaviour is not acceptable. I am the leader of the party in the state and I know the behaviour of every member of the party. On Bode George, if anything happens, he would not hide his feelings, he would even address the press on where he stands. So, nobody should insinuate any wrongdoing against any leader of the party in the state. By the time those people are called to order appropriately, they would give account of those behind them and who their sponsors are.

Are you saying that Jandor, your Governorship Candidate, was not taking directives from the leaders of the party?

You should know that already, I don’t need to tell you that.

Your party did now win any seat in the state in the last election, what was responsible for this?

A lot was responsible and the major one comes from our Governorship Candidate. This is the first time that we would have a governorship candidate of the party that has no recourse to the party, he didn’t relate with the party. At that time, I was trying to make sure that I did everything as a father, but you see what happened. The rest is history, but we have appointed people of impeccable character and integrity to look at the whole thing holistically, address the issues, and correct the ills to have a united party.

The issue of campaign funds sent to the state is also there and your name and those of others were mentioned among those that mismanaged it, how would you react to this?

When the committee gets into action, they would invite all the parties and get to the root of it because in the campaign, we had the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), the management and so on. So, it’s an internal issue of the party and it is wrong for me as a member of the party to go to the press, when we have not explored all the internal and operational things to solve it. Those who do such don’t understand how politics runs. They are out to destroy the party and cause disaffection in the party. I would not say because they are doing the wrong thing I should follow suit. I will follow the due process and all these things would be done transparently according to the rules laid down by the constitution of the party.

Don’t you think that as the Chairman of the party you should have addressed these issues, what do you plan to do to handle them even now?

Number one, the right steps are already taken, when the entire state exco met and made a pronouncement that the state exco is intact. Those who did what they did, few of them, had gone to the court and contradicted what the court asked them to do. Those people are dissidents and by the time they are questioned, they would say who their sponsors are.