The leadership crisis rocking the Ondo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party as a chieftain of the party, Mr Bode Obanla, has sued a former governor of the state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, over the latter’s leadership position in the party.
Mimiko, a former National Leader of the Zenith Labour Party, defected to the PDP recently and has since assumed the leadership position in the party. But some members of the party were not satisfied with the return of the former governor.
Obanla dragged Mimiko to court, seeking the order of the court to bar the former governor from assuming the leadership of the party, having dumped the PDP for ZLP previously.
The chieftain filed the suit at the Ondo State High Court, through his lawyers, Messrs Kalu Kalu Agu and Oladimeji Oyesusi.
The suit has the National Chairman, Dr Iyochia Ayu, members of the National Working Committee, Ondo State Chairman of the party, Fatai Adams, members of the State Working Committee and the PDP as defendants.
According to the suit, the claimant sought a declaration that Mimiko, going by Chapter 2, Article 17 of the Constitution of the PDP as amended is an ordinary member of the party.
The suit sought for “a declaration that the Mimiko is not entitled to be accorded the seniority and privileges attendant to his status as a former governor in his membership of Ward Executive Committee, Local Government Executive Committee, State Executive Committee and the National Caucus in that he was not a governor produced by the PDP not having won any governorship election under the party.”
He also sought an “order of perpetual injunction restraining Mimiko from holding out himself or parading himself as a member of the National Executive Committee of the PDP as established in chapter four article 13 (1) and 31(1) (w) of the constitution of the PDP.”
Also, he prayed for “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Dr Ayu, NWC and Adams from granting the Mimiko the seniority and privileges attendant to the status of a former governor produced by the PDP, as provided in the constitution of the PDP and in particular from being a member of the National Executive Committee of the party established in Chapter 4 Article 13 of the Constitution of the party.”
Obanla had pointed out that Mimiko, on December 8, 2006, abandoned his post as Minister for Housing, Lands and Urban Development in the Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, resigned from the PDP and decamped to Labour Party, under which he contested for the governorship election and won.
According to him, Mimiko won the second tenure on the platform of the LP but towards the end of his second tenure decamped to ZLP.
He said Mimiko also decamped from PDP in 2017 to ZLP through which he contested the senatorial election in 2019 general elections, adding that the former governor had not contested any election under the PDP and cannot rejoin the party and assume the position of a leader in the party.
However, the court has not fixed a date for the hearing of the suit.
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