PDP gives Ighodalo certificate of return, vows to settle internal crisis before Edo election

The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has started the process to pacify aggrieved aspirants, including the Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, in last week’s party primary for the Edo State governorship election on September 21, 2024.

This was even as the party insisted that it did not have any parallel primary elections and that the candidate that emerged from Thursday’s primary, Asue Ighodalo, would be issued the certificate of return today.

Recall that Shaibu was declared winner of a parallel primary at the deputy governor’s lodge, with 300 votes. He thereafter vowed that the party would lose the governorship election if he was not accepted as the flagbearer.

Aside from Shaibu, eight other aspirants: Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama, Anselm Ojezua, Felix Akhabue, Martin Uhomoibhi, Hafia Hadizat Umoru, Omosede Igbinedion, Earl Osaro Onaiwu, and Arthur Esene, petitioned the NWC before the primary to complain about the congress that produced the delegates for the primary election. 

Speaking on a Channels TV programme monitored by Daily Trust yesterday, Debo Ologunagba, the party’s national publicity secretary, said the party knew Shaibu as a “party man” that meant well for Edo State and thus hoped that he would work to ensure the PDP approached the election as a united front to ensure continuity of good governance for the state.

On what he made of Shaibu’s declaration, Ologunagba said, “Elections are emotive, and people can feel rather one way or the other, but the process must be followed.

“For us, we know we have gotten to the next stage of getting our party members together… When there are complaints, as there are now, the internal mechanism will kick in.”

In a statement again yesterday, Ologunagba said the NWC had concluded arrangements to “present the certificate of return to Ighodalo, the elected candidate of our party for the September 21, 2024, governorship election in Edo State.”

He explained that the presentation followed the “successful completion of the election and the ratification of the exercise by the appeal panel.”