A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, yesterday hailed the outcome of Monday’s South-West congress of the party, saying there was “no vanquished and there is no restrictive winner.”
“The victory belongs to all of us,” George said while reacting to the emergence of a former Deputy Governor of Oyo State, Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja, as the zonal chairman.
Arapaja, backed by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and George himself, defeated Eddy Olafeso supported by former Ekiti governor, Ayodele Fayose, in the tension-soaked congress held in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.
Both Makinde and Fayose had been at loggerheads over the congress but they embraced at the congress venue with Fayose conceding the South-West party leadership to Makinde.
The former PDP deputy chairman, who was once an occupier of the zonal chairmanship position, noted that the congress had “injected and infused a new mandate of hope and renewal not only in the Peoples Democratic Party but also across Yorubaland.”
“It has affirmed our commitment to peaceful engagement even when we disagree among ourselves. It has shown that disputes and differences need not fester into violence and communal disruptions.
“Yes, democracy is about the pitting of ideas, the grappling with conflicting views and interests. But in the end, there is always an arrival at a consensus-building, the initiation of compromise, the settlement of rifts through the pacific largeness of the ballot box.
“Well, the battle has been won and lost. But there is no vanquished and there is no restrictive winner. The victory belongs to all of us. This is now the moment to mend the broken places, to reconcile and rebuild without any recourse to personal triumphalism. We are all winners,” he said.
