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As other zones concluded their Congresses in March, three other zones were left hanging because of some internal party leadership that loomed. The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) had to bow to a consensus approach to avoid post-Congress defection and internal enemies. In a statement on February 28, the National Organizing Secretary of the party, Col Austin Akobundu (rtd), had announced the change of the zonal congress dates while also extending the tenures of Zonal Caretaker Committees for South-West, North-Central and North-West for another period of 30 days with effect from March 10, 2021. The NWC of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) thereafter shifted the South-West zonal congress earlier scheduled for Saturday, April 8 to Monday, April 12 and moved the venue from Ibadan to Osogbo. The decision to move the venue to Osogbo cannot be too far from preventing the incumbent Oyo state governor from holding a proximity advantage. In the Southwest, the former governor of Ekiti state, Ayo Fayose, had said that leaders in the Southwest zone had agreed at a meeting hosted in Ibadan at Oyo state governor, Seyi Makinde’s house, that a former Ondo State Information Commissioner, Eddy Olafeso, should take the position of National Vice Chairman (Southwest) of the PDP. Meanwhile, Makinde insisted that a former deputy governor of Oyo, Taofeek Arapaja, is better suited for the position. Despite moving the venue of the Southwest congress to a neutral place, the tension on the slated date was still palpable. The atmosphere only became more comfortable after Fayose gave a speech that declared his endorsement of Makinde as the South West PDP leader.
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Eventually, Taofeek Arapaja won the chairmanship of the PDP Southwest Zonal Executive Committee with 346 delegate votes while Eddy Olafeso who Fayose backed had 330 delegate votes. In a fashion characteristic of Fayose switching expertly, he later went on Channels TV in a chat with Seun Okin to lay subtle allegations of how the congress elections were rigged. While Fayose has referred to Seyi Makinde as ‘baby governor’ in the past owing to his own perceived position in the zone’s politics, and emphasising his resolve not to regard him as the leader of the party in the Southwest, Fayose had also been at loggerheads with strong PDP figures in his home state of Ekiti such as Senator Olujinimi who supported Makinde’s caucus. There had also been suspected by some conspiracy theorists that Fayose being loyal to the national APC bigwig, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, he only wanted to hijack the PDP party structure in the Southwest for his own machinations and its usefulness in backing Tinubu’s presidential ambition. While the major task which the PDP as the main opposition party in the nation is yet to unveil, it may have surmounted one layer of the internal struggles threatening its chances of out-smarting the incumbent party (APC) come 2023.
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