Ex-Oyo Governor Ladoja Defects Again 4 Months After Dumping PDP

Former Governor Rasheed Ladoja of Oyo State has defected from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).

Mr Ladoja made the announcement on Sunday while addressing journalists at his Bodija, Ibadan residence.

It comes four months after he left the former ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The 74-year-old had last week alleged that a group within the ADC, Unity Forum, had changed the winning template designed for ADC ahead of the 2019 general elections.

He then gave the party 48 hours to change its deputy governorship candidate, Saheed Alaran.

Failure on the side of the party leaders to do so, Ladoja said, pushed him out of the door.

He said he had no personal grudges with Mr Alaran becoming deputy governor, but that the party would suffer from the votes of the region if the “mistake by a group within ADC is allowed to go unchallenged.”

Ladoja has now asked the leadership of the Zenith Labour Party to forward the name of former Secretary to the State Government Sharafadeen Alli to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the party’s new governorship candidate.

Ladoja’s former finance commissioner Waheed Akanbi had in October emerged the ZLP candidate.

But Akanbi was prevailed upon by Ladoja to allow Alli, a lawyer, to fly the party’s flag.

Ladoja defected to the ADC in August barely a year after he re-joined the PDP from the Accord Party.

The former governor said the national leadership of PDP was unfair to him despite his genuine intention to return to the party he jointly built and on whose ticket he governed Oyo between 2003 and 2007.