News
2022 Guber: Fayose’s Endorsement Of Kolawole Unsettles Ekiti PDP
Fayose’s insistence on the choice of Kolawole, who is PDP factional chairman, loyal to the former governor, is causing tension among party members who are looking forward to a transparent primary election to elect a standard bearer.
fresh crisis is brewing in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State following the decision of former governor Ayodele Fayose to endorse Bisi Kolawole as Governorship candidate for 2022 election.
Fayose’s insistence on the choice of Kolawole, who is PDP factional chairman, loyal to the former governor, is causing tension among party members who are looking forward to a transparent primary election to elect a standard bearer.
Many of Fayose’s loyalists were surprised on why he is rooting for Kolawole after he had earlier directed them to work for former Deputy Governorship candidate, Deji Ogunsakin.
The former Governor reportedly communicated the choice of Kolawole to members of his group, Osoko Political Assembly, OPA, few days ago at a meeting in his Afao Ekiti residence.
Kolawole, who represented Efon constituency in the House of Assembly between 2007 and 2011, also served as commissioner for Environment under Fayose between 2015 and 2018.
Fayose had earlier directed that a bank account, in the name of OPA, be opened for every Governorship Aspirant to make a payment of N2 million before they could declare their ambition.
Some Aspirants, who were said to have complied by paying the sum included the PDP candidate for the 2018 Governorship election, Olusola Eleka; two former House of Representatives members, Segun Adekola and Ayodele Oladimeji, and former Deputy Governorship candidate, Deji Ogunsakin.
While some party members hailed Fayose’s anointment of Kolawole as the preferred PDP standard bearer, others vowed to resist the choice which they described as another attempt to impose a candidate on the party ahead of the 2022 Governorship election.