PDP legal adviser truncating peace in the party, Makinde warns

Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo state, has asked the national working committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to call its national legal adviser to order.

While speaking at the government house, Ibadan, on Thursday, the governor said the legal adviser is truncating the peace of the party by taking an internal matter to court.

“I specifically put on notice that the National Legal Adviser of PDP has not done well. When the issue of the party structure in Lagos came up, I met him personally and advised him that, look, we have alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in this country, especially when it’s an internal affair of the PDP,” he said.

“And he said, no, we are going to defeat them in court, but I was of the opinion that if we defeat them in court, what exactly are you going to get out of it? Now, he has started the same antics with the South West zonal congress. How can you file a case and then you instruct legal representation for the plaintiff and for the defendants? I don’t think that is acceptable. So, we expect the National Working Committee of the party to deal with that decisively.”

The governor also expressed his opposition to an alleged plan by the committee to postpone the south-west zonal congress.

“At the meeting, we reaffirmed the zoning arrangement for the positions of the South West zonal executives, and also each state, by now, has been able to put together a unity list, which we intend to take to the congress proper,” he said.

“But yesterday, I heard of disturbing news that our National Working Committee is planning to postpone the South West zonal congress because some people went to court to complain about the location for the conduction of the congress.”

He urged the committee to allow the south-west to conduct its congress around the same time as other zones.

“The engagement is ongoing with the leadership of the party at the national level. If the rest of the country are having their zonal congress, I don’t see anything that will be different with the South West,” he added.