The Ogun State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday said it was not aware of the gubernatorial aspiration of the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole.
Speaking at the party’s secretariat, its state Chairman, Bayo Dayo, said that Bankole was not one of its 11 aspirants contesting in today’s primary election, saying Bankole was yet to purchase the PDP Expression of Interest form.
He said the expression form would have formally announced Bankole as an aspirant in the governorship primary election.
Dayo said unlike the other governorship aspirants of the party, Bankole had failed to show seriousness about his aspiration to become the party’s standard bearer, adding that the former Speaker had only been looking for a “short cut” to becoming the PDP governorship candidate instead of going through due process.
“But we’ll continue to say it that he (Bankole) did not obtain Expression of Interest form from Ogun State. Until that is obtained, I wouldn’t know him as one of our aspirants,” Dayo said.
According to him, I’m still saying that I am not aware that Dimeji Bankole is contesting the governorship in Ogun State. The money we are using to run this party is enormous. Some people have been doing that for years.
“Somebody cannot just say because he has been to Harvard, Cambridge or Oxford, he’s coming to lead us overnight. It’s not going to happen. So, if you are contesting you must come to the state secretariat and obtained an Expression of Interest form.
“Those forms that are given to us by the various aspirants are the forms we are using for all these primaries, congresses we are doing. We do not have special funds for all these things.
“It is the money contributed by all these aspirants that we are using. The arrangement about Dimeji Bankole, I do not know anything about it.”
Bayo alleged that Bankole had since 2011 when he lost his re-election bid into the House of Representatives distanced himself from the party.
The state PDP chairman however said that he could not stop any aspirant who had done the right thing from contesting for the tickets of the party.
Follow Us