Edo PDP crisis festers as Party suspends reps Member, Ogbeide-Ihama, LGA Chairman

Tribune

The battle of supremacy between the old members of the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the new members, who decamped to the party alongside Governor Godwin Obaseki from the All Progressive Congress (APC), in June 2020, festered on Thursday evening with Tue suspension of the member representing Oredo Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives, Hon. Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama.

Besides Ogbeide-Ihama, the Oredo Oredo Local Government Area PDP Chairman, Oduwa Igbinosun, was also suspended on allegations of embezzlement and anti-party activities.

Ogbeide-Ihama, who until Governor Obaseki crossed over to the PDP, was the favoured aspirant to clinch the PDP governorship ticket for the September 19, 2020, gubernatorial election but had to step down for Obaseki to emerge as PDP and went ahead to win the election for his second term in office.

The Edo PDP has been in crisis ever since the new entrants demanded that they should be integrated into the party structures from the Ward to the state executive level, a move the old members rejected, arguing that the structures remained for the three-year duration the executives were elected.

The matter came to a head last week when the governor submitted an 11-man commissioner nominees list to the state House of Assembly, all APC decampees, and went ahead to swear them in on Tuesday, to the exclusion of the old PDP.

The final stroke from the governor’s camp was delivered on Saturday, at an enlarged stakeholders meeting, where Obaseki announced that he had taken over the structures and leadership of the party in the state and issued a seven-day ultimatum to the old PDP to integrate the new members or kiss the remaining seven commissioner slots goodbye.

At an enlarged meeting of the PDP at the Oredo PDP Secretariat, Mr. Omoregbe John from Oredo Ward 8 moved a motion for the suspension of Hon. Ogbiede-Ihama and Igbinosun.
https://tribuneonlineng.com/edo-pdp-crisis-festers-as-party-suspends-reps-member-ogbeide-ihama-lga-chairman/