The National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the Oyo State Governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde and former Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose to table their differences before the party’s National Peace and Reconciliation Committee, chaired by former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki.
Makinde and Fayose have in the past few months, locked horns in what party sources described as a supremacy battle over control of the PDP machinery in the Southwest geopolitical zone.
The clash of the duo has fractured the PDP in the zone into two factions with one faction supporting the governor while the other has lined up behind the former governor.
Governor Makinde had, a few weeks ago, set up a reconciliation committee with a view to resolving the leadership crisis in the zone. The committee is chaired by a former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
But Fayose had disagreed with the composition of the committee, saying that Oyinlola and other members of the said committee were merely handpicked by the governor and as such could not be disinterested in their approach to the assignment.
The former Ekiti governor had set up a parallel committee as a counterforce to the one led by Oyinlola.
As the media war between the two factions continued to rage, a former Special Duties Minister, Elder Wole Oyelese, had blamed Secondus for the festering crisis between the two camps.
Oyelese was quoted as saying that the party chairman had been obsessed with his alleged tenure extension scheming to the point of playing divisive roles in the crisis.
Secondus however repudiated the accusation, saying that the crisis in the Southwest PDP is as old as the PDP itself.
In a WhatsApp message by his media adviser, Ike Abonyi on Tuesday, the party chairman advised the two factions to approach the Saraki committee with their differences for resolution.
“The crisis Southwest PDP is as old as the PDP itself whereas Secondus became National Chairman in December 2017.
“Let them channel their problems to the Bukola Saraki led Peace and Reconciliation Committee set up by the same Secondus. If you put your house in order, outsiders can do nothing to its foundation,” the chairman said.