Saraki and Sowunmi locked in fierce two-horse race to become next PDP chairman

FORMER Kwara State governor and ex-senate president Senator Bukola Saraki is locked in what looks like a fierce two-horse race along with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign spokesman Segun Sowunmi to become the next chairman of the party.

After losing the last presidential election, the PDP chairman Senator Iyorchia Ayu, was forced to stand down and deputy national chairman, Umar Damagum was appointed to replace him in an acting capacity. There are now plans to elect a substantive chairman, with Mr Sowunmi and Senator Saraki emerging as the two front runners.

Speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Mr Sowunmi said he is confident he will beat Senator Saraki in the contest. He added that the emergence of Senator  Saraki would amount to another party chairman from the north central geopolitical zone, assuming office, which he said would be unfair to the southwest.

Mr Sowunmi, a former governorship aspirant in Ogun state, added: “I’ll beat him. I’ll ask him what he did in 2014/2015, when they destabilised the party. I’ll beat him, I’m sure of that.”

Previous  PDP chairmen include Solomon Lar, Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh, Ahmadu Ali, Vincent Ogbulafor, Okwesileze Nwodo and Haliru Mohammed. Others include Kawu Baraje, Bamanga Tukur, Adamu Mu’azu, Ali Modu Sheriff, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, Uche Secondus and lyorchia Ayu.

Of the 15 chairmen to date, there have been six from the north central geo-political zone. These include Messrs Lar, Gemade, Ogbeh, Ali, Baraje, and Ayu.

Mr Sowunmi said: “If north central thinks that it is their inalienable right to be chairman all the time, then those of us in the southwest can tell them, no, we don’t agree. Some of us have put in a lot more than you guys have put in and we want the party chairman to be in the southwest, so if young people want me to be, then we’ll meet ourselves in the field.

 “When you have the situation that we have on hand now, we must be very measured, we must be very careful and we must not run into that consistent argument of thinking that our issue is removing the person in charge. We had the same conversation with Ali Modu Sherriff, then we ran into Makarfi, then we ran into Secondus, then we ran into Ayu.

"Now, we’re with Damagun. We cannot be a political party that keeps saying all the time that nobody is good enough to lead us.”

Asked if he had the backing of the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, Mr Sowunmi maintained that the former vice president was not the kind of person who liked to destabilise things. He added that young people are just gyrating and his name is coming up.