Ladoja returns to PDP
•May get national secretary’s post
•His come back a fait accompli –Ladipo
From YINKA FABOWALE, IBADAN
Monday, February 20, 2012
All may now have been set for the much speculated come back of the former governor of Oyo State and Accord Party (AP) leader, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Concern on what terms the influential politician would return and what role he would play in an emergent PDP may have been put paid to, as Daily Sun authoritatively learnt at the weekend that he might have been offered the position of the national secretary of the party.
The ex-governor, it was learnt, also received assurances that the interest of his numerous supporters, with whom he left the party to form the AP in 2010, following irreconcilable differences within the PDP, would be accommodated in the ongoing re-organization of the party in the state.
Those are the high points of weeks of talks and negotiations between the party’s national hierarchy and the AP leader. The party’s National Vice Chairman (South-west), Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipupo was at Ladoja’s Bodija home in Ibadan last Saturday to finetune the pact and the unanimous decision of other party leaders in the state to accept him back into the fold.
Oladipupo said he had to persuade the former governor to come back and join forces to reposition the party .
One major huddle in the way of final reconciliation process, however, is persuading the throng of AP loyalists to wade back into the PDP. Sources told Daily Sun that many AP stalwarts were not enthusiastic about the idea of re-joining the PDP, citing distrust and perceived treachery of some of the PDP, which forced them out in the first place.
Some also argued that it was better to remain in the AP as the image of the PDP was already battered, adding that rejoining the party may negatively affect the reputation and fortunes of their leader as well as themselves.
Meanwhile, the National Vice Chairman (South-west) PDP, Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipo last weekend declared that the return of former governor of Oyo State and leader of the Accord Party (AP), Senator Rashidi Ladoja was crucial to returning the party to good fortunes and its winning ways.
He made the admission last weekend when a reconcialiatory team of the party he led met with the ex- governor at his Bodija, Ibadan residence, as a follow up to moves to woo him back into the party. Oladipo described the meeting as fruitful, successful, expressing confidence that the politician’s return to the party was a fait accompli.
The PDP chief hinted that the return of the former governor was crucial and critical to the PDP, not in his home state alone but in the South-west and in the country as a whole.
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