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A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in
Ogun State opposed to the state governor, Gbenga Daniel, has rolled out
plans to support the presidential ambition of Goodluck Jonathan.

The faction, made up of the Omo-Ilu Group headed by
Buruji Kashamu and others, has printed and commenced distribution of
membership cards and posters to all the 20 local government areas and
wards.

The project, ‘Re-Build Nigeria Initiative,’ recorded
a large number of members in attendance at the meeting held at Ijebu
Igbo. The event also gave birth to the inauguration of three committees
to reposition the group for the upcoming electioneering campaign.

Mr Kashamu presented the posters canvassing for
Jonathan’s bid, with captions such as: ‘Hello, 150 million
Nigerians…. Who Deserves Better Life Than You?,’ ‘See and be seen in
the Nigeria of your dreams’ and ‘Let your views count, you have the
power.’ The group’s Director of Organization, Tunde Oladunjoye, said
the Omo-Ilu group serves as a stabilizing force within the PDP and that
the new committees would reposition the organization towards presenting
credible candidates for the party primaries and ensuring their victory.

Repositioning to meet challenges

“I want to say with all form of modesty that a lot of
people would have left this party if not for Omo-Ilu, because they are
complaining of lack of empowerment, even dividend of democracy doesn’t
get to the grassroots,” Mr Oladunjoye said.

“We are trying to re-position the organization to
meet electioneering challenges. We need to re-energize to produce
better results, that is why we have come up with three committees.” The
groups are the screening and verification, disciplinary and
reconciliation and campaign and strategy committees.

“We want to even screen our candidates in-house
before they are offered to the party, so there will be little or no
stress. We also use it as a forum to reconcile differences in case
there is more than a candidate for a position,” he said.

“The disciplinary committee will instil discipline within the
organization, to reconcile different interests. We also need to spread
our gospel, canvass, mobilize. We are doing this because we know that
it is an organization that is daily expanding.”