Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has drawn the battle line between his once respected political leaders and associates.
Speaking at in the Ijebu Jesa area of Osun State while addressing members of the All Progressives Congress ahead of Saturday’s governorship primary election in the state the minister lamented that the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu rewarded his years of loyalty with betrayal.
Aregbesola, who was governor of Osun State from 2010 to 2018, said he trusted APC National Leader, Bola Tinubu, but the ex-governor of Lagos State repaid him with betrayal.
He accused Tinubu; a former APC interim chairman and ex-governor of Osun State, Bisi Akande, of foisting the current governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola, on the people, against popular will.
Aregbesola, who leads an APC faction in the state and who had been engaged in a feud with his successor, Oyetola, accused the incumbent governor of not consolidating on his eight-year ‘achievements’.
Aregbesola, therefore, called on the party members in Osun to support a former Secretary to the State Government, Moshood Adeoti, in Saturday’s governorship primary.
The aspirants warming up for the party primary include the incumbent governor, Oyetola; former Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, Yusuff Lasun; and former Secretary to the State Government, Adeoti; who recently returned to the ruling APC in June 2020, from the Action Democratic Party.
Aregbecola argued that just as ex-governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, was rejected by APC members in 2019 for working against the laid down rules, Oyetola would be thrown out of office after just a term.
Aregbesola and Tinubu had been decade-long political associates. The former was Director of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organisation who drove the electoral victory of Bola Tinubu in 1999 and also ensured Tinubu’s return to office in 2003. Aregbesola was also Commissioner of Works and Infrastructure while Tinubu was Lagos governor.
But the now angry minister said of Tinubu, “Only God can terrify us, not man. Go and tell them wherever they are, we own this party. We own this Afenifere group. We own this people-loving group started by our patriarchs — (Obafemi) Awolowo and Bola Ige. This is Elder Akande’s group before he temporarily left us. This is our party. Stop calling yourself a factional group; you are not a faction; you are the authentic APC.”
He thereafter launched a political song to drive home his point; Bye-bye to jagba-jagba, rede rede (nonsense).
“We came back home to reposition our party to where it was meant to be because we followed the leading of our leader that we thought was a noble and reliable fellow. We followed him (Tinubu) dutifully with all sense of loyalty. Some people even thought that we were no longer Muslims because of how we cooperated with him. We dealt with him without treachery but we never knew he planned evil for us. We exalted him beyond his status and he turned himself to a god over us and we had sworn to ridicule anyone who compare himself to God. God has no competitor; He is enough to be God.
“We built this party on perseverance as well as sweat and blood. We lost a lot of people in this struggle but eventually, we came into government on November 27, 2010. We were in government for eight years and governed according to the measure of God’s grace, everybody in Osun enjoyed our tenure.”
Aregbesola further disclosed how Tinubu imposed Oyetola as his successor in Osun in 2018.
“When he (Tinubu) will hand over the present governor to me around July of 2018, he (Tinubu) declared that he (Oyetola) will succeed me and continue my good works. That was what he told me. He knows he has not done so if he is listening now and he has failed to call my successor to order,” he said.
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