Tajudeen Yusuf, a former member of the house of representatives, says some governors in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are deliberately fuelling internal crises to justify defection.
Yusuf, a PDP chieftain, spoke on ‘Sunrise Daily,’ a Channels Television programme, on Thursday.
He said the party’s problems worsened after it failed to uphold its zoning principle ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
“In 2023, we deviated from our fundamental principles of zoning presidency,” the former lawmaker said.
“If you remember, in 2014, the agitation was that Yar’Adua didn’t complete his term and Goodluck Jonathan had taken over, and to a lot of people, he was eating into the time of the north.
“Five governors led by Atiku Abubakar and everybody walked out of a convention in Eagle Square — that was the beginning of PDP’s crisis.”
He said most of those who left returned by 2019, noting that the party chose to zone its presidential ticket to the north to avoid another fallout.
“Atiku emerged in line with that principle. By 2023, it was natural the ticket should have gone back to the south, but some interests who felt they had the capacity to sway the mission made sure there was no zoning,” he said.
“I was at the meeting — I remember saying, ‘If we don’t zone, we will regret this.”
The former lawmaker, who represented the Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu constituency in Kogi for 12 years, said ethnicity and religion still shape political decisions in Nigeria.
“For now, politics in Nigeria cannot be separated from religion and ethnicity. We might get there later when those two take back seats, but not now,” he said.
He recalled that in 2019, all PDP presidential aspirants came from the north, but by 2022, contenders also came from the south — a shift that, according to him, signaled internal divisions.
“So, we find ourselves where we are now. What you’re seeing is that, after the election, those interests began to regroup for the next election,” he said.
“If you observe, PDP governors are now coming together regularly to hold meetings. But I can tell you—they’re not funding the party.”
He said some aspirants exploit the delegate system by banking on bloc support from certain regions.
“Because primary elections are done by delegates, and because of the number of states in some regions, it’s easy for someone to pick the ticket,” he said.
“From 2015 to 2019, people worked for this party — someone came and picked the ticket.”
Yusuf described the PDP’s current state as its worst phase in opposition.
He criticised the controversy surrounding the party’s national secretary, saying the issue was avoidable.
“It is clear — the secretary of the party is elected at the convention. If you want to remove him, wait for the convention or find a legal route,” he said.
“The supreme court came with a clear position. But governors met and said they do not recognise him. Maybe what happened yesterday in Delta is connected.
“Some of the governors consciously allowed this crisis to continue — just to find a justifiable ground to move.
“Any time I look at it, I ask, how could you, after a supreme court judgment, direct the national working committee to ask the deputy secretary to act? So, by implication, you are extending the frontier of the crisis.”
On Wednesday, Sheriff Oborevwori, governor of Delta state, defected from the PDP to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
“We came to the inevitable conclusion that moving out of the PDP is very, very necessary for us to be able to collaborate with our kith and kin and build that state that every Deltan will be proud of,” Charles Aniagwu, Delta state commissioner for information, announced. (The Cable)
