Crisis was narrowly averted in the Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday, as loyalists of Governor Ayodele Fayose and a chieftain of the party, Dr. Tope Aluko, engaged in a tussle over the state congress to elect the national delegates for the presidential primary.

The delegates are to be elected to participate in the national congress leading to the election of the party’s presidential candidate for the 2019 general election.

The battle was fiercer in Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government, where Fayose and Aluko hail from, as the party members, including a serving member of the House of Assembly representing constituency 1 of the council, Hon. Posi Omodara, ward councilors and elected party officials rejected the choice of a former Minister of Aviation, Mr. Babatunde Omotoba, as a national delegate.

However, members loyal to Fayose from all the 11 wards, who were also opposed to Aluko, boycotted the Congress.

The PDP members at the congress conducted at the local government headquarters in Igede Ekiti, elected Aluko with 80 votes out of the accredited 84 delegates in defiance to Fayose’s preference for Omotoba.

Most of the party members, who spoke at the congress conducted by party’s Vice-Chairman in Ekiti Central and Returning Officer, Mr. Tunji Kayode, said Aluko’s election as a national delegate was meant to save the party from undue slavery and for political emancipation.

Addressing the party members, Aluko promised that he would continue to serve the party in the most committed way by the election he described as fight for political liberty and freedom.

A former PDP chairman in the council, Hon. Jinadu Isiaka, said the election of Aluko was targeted at saving the party from ruin occasioned by alleged imposition in the party.

•Excerpted from a THISDAY report