The gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2019 election in Ogun State, Senator Buruji Kashamu, has accused the suspended chairman of the party, Mr. Bayo Dayo, of planning to sell the party’s structure to Chief Kessington Adubutu, but insisted that the party is not for sale.
Kashamu, who alleged that Dayo was planning to “sell” the party to Adebutu, whose son, Ladi Adebutu, is the leader of a faction of the PDP in the state for N100 million, warned both Dayo and Adebutu that nobody has the power to sell the structure of the party in the State.
Recall that Dayo was suspended on Monday as the Chairman of the party for allegedly involving in anti-party activities.
Kashamu, a stalwart of the PDP, in a statement he personally signed and dated Tuesday, April 14, alleged, “We have the evidence of the meeting at Equity Hotel, Ijebu Ode, where Dayo collected money to sell the Ogun State structures of the PDP to Kessington Adebutu. What the Adebutus should realize is that they have been scammed, as Dayo has no power to transfer the structures of the Party to anyone.
“This illegal transaction shows the low mentality of Dayo. Otherwise, how can anyone think that he can sell a political structure comprising many interests and major stakeholders for a mere N100 million?”
The statement reads in part, “No one is against the reconciliation of any aggrieved members, but the question members of the party continue to ask is: how Dayo could claim that he was trying to reconcile anyone when he did not have any meeting with any stakeholder or any of the party executive committees at the local government or ward level and carried nobody in the state executive committee along before signing his contract with the Adebutus.
“What is more intriguing is: how would someone who calls himself PDP chairman want to sell the party to people who still have a binding and subsisting three-year agreement with the Allied People’s Movement, APM, in Ogun State? The agreement, which was publicly announced on the 7th of March, 2019, has just clocked a year and the agreement will lapse in 2022. These elements have neither repudiated the agreement nor have they formally returned to the PDP.
“The party structure, which he has betrayed, is the same one that has sustained him as party leader in the state for the last 10 years, first as Ogun East senatorial district chairman for two years and then as state chairman for 8 years.
“Dayo has proven time and again that his greed can never be satisfied. He used the chairmanship position to enrich himself and his family. In 2015, he embezzled about N50 million campaign funds, just as he got a plot of land in Abuja as chairman of the PDP in Ogun State, which he sold for N25 million. He was meant to share the money with other exco members and leaders. But, he didn’t. He pocketed everything.
“Still in 2015, he misappropriated over N100 million; N50 million realized from the sale of nomination forms and another N50 million of campaign funds. Of the millions realized from the sale of nomination forms sold ahead of the 2019 election, about N60 million was misappropriated without recourse to the leaders, elders and other stakeholders. During the 2019 election, I personally paid him N40 million to be shared between him and the erstwhile State Secretary, Alhaji Semiu Sodipo. He took N25 million and gave N15 million to Sodipo. Another sum of N34 million was facilitated for him through a kinsman, Mr. Teslim Giwa.
“He (Dayo) collected over N10 million from me for the just concluded ward, local government and state congresses in Ogun State, without giving the delegates any money. For the past eight years, he got between N5 million and N10 million monthly for the running of his office and the party secretariat, where he inflated staff salaries and paid ghost or non-existent workers. These are a few of the many deals he struck while he held sway as the state PDP chairman and yet his greedy nature won’t leave him.
“Yet, Dayo thinks he can now sell everyone in Ogun PDP to the Adebutus. He is the greatest betrayer of all time. No right thinking person should have anything to do with him.”
On the suspension of the embattled chairman, Kashamu said, “Constitutionally, the suspension of Adebayo Dayo was very much in order as prescribed by Article 57(3) of the PDP constitution.
“This provision empowers the Ogun State Working Committee, OGSWC, of the PDP to suspend any member of the party for a period not exceeding one month, during which period such a member may be referred to the appropriate Disciplinary Committee.
“The SWC did not entertain any motion to discipline Adebayo Dayo. It only considered a motion to lodge a complaint against him at the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the PDP, for his activities against the party in Ogun State.
“Once it was resolved to lodge a complaint at the NEC against Dayo for the question of his discipline to be entertained by the NEC of the party, the members of the SWC further resolved that he should be suspended in the interim, until the NEC decides whether or not to initiate the necessary disciplinary process against him.”
Kashamu however urged members of the party to remain peaceful and calm, assuring them that “the future of the party in Ogun State is bright and all will be well.”
