Jamiu Yisa/Political Correspondent

Tunji Shelle: party gripped by leadership crisis

It’s obviously not the best of time for the embattled chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Captain  Olatunji Shelle, as 35 of the 49 members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) has signed a petition seeking his removal for the 2nd time.

A chieftain of the party, Wahab Owokoniran, said that the vote of confidence claimed to have been passed on Shelle was by fewer  than 14 of the 49 members of the  executive committee .

He added that the meeting summoned by Shelle was unconstitutional and illegal since he was not privy to it.

Owokoniran in statements made available to our correspondent, called on the NWC of the party to call Captain Shelle to order and discourage him from promoting illegalities.

“Nothing can be achieved when majority of the party members and excos are aggrieved and we are urging the public to disregard his posture as the Chairman noting that until the NWC  takes a decision and intervene, it is a graveyard peace,” the statement reads.

Majority of the executive committee members  had on the 11th day of May, 2015 passed a vote of no confidence on Shelle over alleged misappropriation of party funds and high handedness in the management of the party’s affairs amongst others.

Meanwhile the  chairman of a faction of the party, Kamaldeen Olorunoje, insisted he is  the substantive chairman.

Olorunoje: Claims chairmanship of party

Olorunoje said this while reacting to the vote of confidence passed on Captain Olatunji Shelle by the party executive last Wednesday, described the exercise as a ruse.

He insisted that only few members of the party were still behind Shelle.

He declared that there is no way his group, being the majority, would sit together with those in the minority and led by Shelle.

Speaking further, Olorunoje said he deliberately avoided coming to the office the day Shelle was reinstated, and tasked him to identify those who purportedly gave him the confidence vote, which he claimed were 29 out of 45 strong exco member of the party.

“The day we took the decision to suspend him, we called the press and we identified ourselves one by one and we were in the majority. Selle should have done the same thing when he appeared because I watched him on television.

“I deliberately stayed away from the office that day in order to avoid breakdown of law and order because that is what he wanted to happen so that they would say that we are the trouble makers, which has been their claim all along,” he said.

Olorunoje, who recalled that both himself and Shelle had appeared before the state Commissioner of Police to pledge to keep the peace, said it was now clear that the Shelle group had broken the accord by forcing themselves into the secretariat for the said exercise of confidence vote on Shelle.

While he insisted that he was not prepared to sit down with Shelle to resolve anything as enjoined by the NWC, Olorunoje, however, expressed his willingness to appear before the national leadership of PDP any time he and his group were summoned to do so.

“You should have asked him to show you the letter the NWC wrote to him on the crisis. They asked him to bring peace to the party by calling everybody together. We are not sitting with him. There is no way those in majority would sit together with, or bow to the wishes of those in minority,” he said.