The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State in the 2023 election, Dr Abdulazeez Olajide Adediran, better known as Jandor, has said that the national leadership of the party cannot probe him over his actions because they contributed nothing to his participation in the exercise.
He has also clarified that he did not expel a founding member of the party and its former deputy national chairman, Chief Bode George, along with other prominent supporters in the state, saying that they quit the party of their own volition.
Jandor spoke on the Arise Television programme, the morning show, monitored in Abuja on Tuesday.
Responding to a suggestion that he could be probed by the PDP, he said: “The NWC (national working committee) cannot even do that because they did not give me even one naira for my election.”
Pressed on the purported expulsion of George, former Lagos State deputy governor, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, and other leaders of the party in the state, he said he did not do so as the party leaders opted out on their own.
He explained: “I did not expel them because I have no power to do so. I would rather say they expelled themselves when they declared for another party during the 2023 electioneering process. There is evidence on national TV both for the presidential and gubernatorial elections.
“When a supposed leader of a political party goes on national TV to say, ‘Don’t vote for the candidate of my party,’ irrespective of what it is, it shows that the leader has gone to the other party.
“If the party they supported had won, they would have been part of the government today. I don’t have the power, and they never said they had been expelled. They did it themselves.
“What we’re saying is that because you’ve declared openly, you actually don’t have any say any more.
“If you want to rejoin the PDP, I mean, we do it in politics; you go back to your ward and rejoin through your ward.
“On your own, you came on national TV; on your own, you hosted another candidate in your house and declared support and asked every other person to support that candidate who is not the candidate of the party where you were supposedly the leader.
“You took that decision; we didn’t take it for you.
“For me, what I was speaking to on Sunday is that it’s about time we now look for like minds within the PDP and see how we can press the reset button.”
He alleged that George had added no value to the PDP for over 20 years, noting that the party won elections for the first time in about 20 years in his own ward.
“I joined PDP just last year. Where I voted, the PDP had never won that polling unit before. It was when I joined the PDP, my polling booth, that we won both the presidential election and the governorship election. Chief Olabode George hasn’t won his polling booth for over 20 years,” he said.
The PDP national publicity secretary, Debo Ologunagba, declined comments when reached on Tuesday, saying, “I don’t want to comment on that. I don’t know how money was shared.”
Recall that speaking at a ‘thank-you ceremony’ for members of his campaign team on Sunday, Jandor declared himself the leader of the Lagos PDP following the alleged suspension of other leaders.
ALSO READ THESE TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE