Peoples Democratic Party leaders in the South-West have appealed to the party’s national leadership to help them win governorship elections in Osun and Ekiti states.
Elections are to hold in the two states in 2014.
The South-West leaders met in Abuja on Thursday to strategise ahead of the elections.
They also discussed intra-party quarrels, which have been the bane of the party in the zone.
In a communique on Sunday, the zonal leaders asked the party’s national leadership under Dr. Bamanga Tukur, to help them in the zone.
Chief Shuaib Oyedokun and Chief Bode George, who are members of the Board of Trustees of the party, signed the communique.
It read, “The leaders (of the party in South-West) urged the national leadership of the party to set machinery in motion to ensure that the party wins the governorship elections to be held in Ekiti and Osun states in 2014 without prejudice to the ongoing court cases.”
Former governors of the two states, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, (Osun), and Mr. Segun Oni, (Ekiti) are still in court contesting their removal from office. The two also attended the meeting.
The party leaders also frowned on the distrust and disharmony in the party in the zone.
They said, “South-West is hindered because of lack of dialogue and virtual absence of compromise and reconciliatory spirit as a result of constant intemperate feud fuelled by the superiority syndrome.”
They added that there was deliberate lack of respect and deference to the PDP constitution, a development, they alleged saboteurs and the opposition party in the zone was promoting.
Following this, they said the PDP in the zone had become “stunted, and hobbled by self-contrived problems, thus deepening the marginalisation of the zone”.
They, however, called for reconciliation among its members in the zone.
The meeting, therefore, set up five teams for the states of Ogun, Ondo, Lagos, Ekiti and Oyo to meet with their members and resolve their conflicts amicably.
The meeting expressed deep concern at the marginalisation of the zone at the national affairs despite being the first zone that adopted President Goodluck Jonathan before the 2011 presidential election.
They, therefore, called for a meeting with the President on how to redeem the marginalisation, which they described as “deplorable”.
They urged the President to consider, as a matter of urgency, people from the zone for appointments as Presidential Assistants or Presidential Liaison Assistants.
This, they said, would ensure the faithful implementation of Federal Government policies and projects in the zone.