Your Excellency Sir,
Let me for the umpteenth time congratulate you on your successful election as the National Vice Chairman, South West PDP. Let me also wish you the best in your quest to finding a lasting solution to the crisis rocking the South West PDP Zone especially, Oyo state. The task is odious: you need our prayers. May Your Excellency succeed. Being that as it is, let me take Your Excellency down the memory lane.
Before the South West PDP zonal Congress in Oshogbo, many Reconciliation Committees had been set up to douse the lingering crisis rocking Oyo state especially: but all resulted in futilities.
Your Excellency must be aware of the Dr. Saka Balogun Elders Committee. From onset, I knew it was another “Oputa Panel”. The Saka Balogun had many PDP greats as Members. Alhaj Kunmi Mustapha, the Oyo state PDP Chairman, ex First Lady, Hajia Mutiat Ladoja, Elder J.G. Adetoro, Chief Layi Baale and many others. The Balogun Committee met with individual aggreived leaders and travelled all the 14 Federal Constituencies of Oyo state to meet with the rank and file of the Oyo state PDP. To cap it all, the Dr. Saka Balogun Committee went further to submit a written report to His Excellency, Egnr Seyi Makinde, the Executive Governor of Oyo state. Today, the Committee and her report are consigned in the dustbin of history because the Report failed to tally with the mindset of Mr Governor.
Next is the Prince Olagunsoye Committee to redress the lingering crisis bedeviling the South West PDP Zone. Olagunsoye, a former Governor of Osun state, transversed the length and breadth of the six states of the South West to meet with all the aggreived party leaders and stakeholders. Whatever happened to Olagunsoye Committee wasn’t revealed to the public. But grapevine heard it that the body language of Governor Makinde wasn’t receptive to Olagunsoye Report.
As if the two failed Committees above weren’t enough, Chief Bode George, a former first PDP South West Chairman and an ex Deputy National Chairman, found it necessary as an elder to put to an end the impasse between the Governor and the aggreived. The Premier Hotels Committee was a complete charade.
Your Excellency Ambassador Arapaja, you are a man of integrity: publicly and privately. You were never known for frivolity. Your political successes, though gradual, have been consistent. You were never grouped with your other colleagues as born hypocrites. And you never betrayed a common cause. My brother, you are tested and trusted.
My brother Arapaja, I wouldn’t know if you were commissioned or your own official resolve to dabble into the grouse between Egnr Makinde and a host of many others within the Oyo state PDP. When your entourage including, Yeyeluwa Adedibu, Adewusi Olugbenga Arole, Akeem Ademola Ige, Hon Abiodun Ekolo and others visited the home of Alh Adebisi Olopoeyan , I was on seat. The response by Olopoeyan which though didn’t represent the minds of aggrieved others showed that “only the person of His Excellency, Egnr Seyi Makinde, could resolve this matter. And that was exactly the summary of Saka Balogun Committee Report.
There is a Yours adage that says, “a ki fise igbanse ran omo” (a parent doesn’t send his or her child to toilet on his behalf). What an ordinary phone call by His Excellency, Egnr Seyi Makinde, could achieve, why labouring others.
Sir, another Yoruba adage says, “eru ti reluwe ba ru ti, bi katapila ba lo sibe yo jegba” (the carriage a train failed to bear is beyond the capacity of a caterpillar). If your elders and leaders as Dr. Saka Balogun, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Chief Bode George and others had passed through this “Igbo Irunmole” (Forest of thousand demons) and rubbished, what guarantee has Your Excellency that you won’t be abandoned midway.
But if you were the David who could triumph over the Goliath of the Oyo state PDP, best wishes my brother.
Our prayers are with you.
But to before harmed is to before warned.
Ashipa writes from Ikeja.
