Reconciliation efforts in the ruling P eoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have hit the brick wall following the suspension of the leaders of its breakaway faction, the "new PDP".

Former governor of Kwara State and now a serving senator Bukola Saraki gave the indication yesterday in Abuja while reacting to the suspension of Abubakar Kawu Baraje, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Sam Sam Jaja and Ibrahim Kazaure by the Bamanga Tukur-led National Working Committee (NWC). They were the faction's chairman, secretary, deputy national and national vice chairman (north-west) respectively.

But as Saraki, who is a leader of the breakaway faction, described the action of the mainstream a "setback", correspondence of claims and counter-claims has trailed both the verdict of the Abuja Appeal Court which re-instated Oyinlola as national secretary of the PDP as well as the suspension order slammed on Oyinlola and others.

Saraki, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, told newsmen at the National Assembly yesterday: "By doing this (suspension) now, how are we going to help the reconciliation? It will surely not help reconciliation. Some of us thought it was a golden opportunity to begin to reconcile. I think the party should review its action and give peace a chance because to suspend key members of a faction and still expect the aggrieved governors to be sympathetic to the cause of the party and be attending their meetings will be difficult and would not help the party. "I believe it is unfortunate. It is a means of circumventing the ruling of the court. We should not take the issue of the rule of law with levity. Since a court had ruled that Oyinlola should resume as secretary of the party, PDP should comply with the judgement of the court. These are some of the issues that some of us are angry about. The PDP will be there long after Oyinlola, long after everybody. "The executive there now will not be there forever. It is very sad because some of us have to continue the fight on how we can bring peace to the party.

"If the leadership of the party still insists on suspending the aggrieved PDP members, the opportunity offered the PDP through the court pronouncements asking Oyinlola to resume as national secretary was a great one that would have facilitated the process of reconciliation within the party.

"The feelers that we had initially were that the PDP leadership did not want to challenge the verdict at the Supreme Court. Activities within the next one week or two will determine the direction. The meeting between the G7 governors and the president had been postponed till after the Sallah. The Niger State governor had written the president that his colleagues were ready for the meeting, but I doubt whether the latest scenario would allow such event to hold. Where it would lead to, I don't know. It depends on the action taken by the leadership.

"The party just played into the hands of those who don't believe in reconciliation. In politics you win people to your side, you don't gain anything from losing people. When seven states representing one-third of states being controlled by the PDP are aggrieved, they should be taken seriously. The suspension of Oyinlola, a day after he was to resume in office, was done in bad taste and this would not help the party at all.

"Even if there were moves within the G7 to embrace total reconciliation during the meeting, the action taken against Oyinlola has done the opposite."