Yusuf Oketola
THE factional Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the State of Osun, Hon. Rasaq Salinsile, has and the Chairman of The Osun Progressives (TOP), Rev. Lowo Adebiyi, have disclosed that they foresaw the electoral defeat of the party in last Saturday’s governorship election.
Both Salinsile and Adebiyi, in separate interviews, stated that the internal crisis rocking the party robbed it of victory at the poll.
Salinsile said it was obvious that the lack of unity in the party caused by “Oyetola’s politics of segregation” cost the APC victory at the poll.
The Chairman said he had seen the electoral defeat ahead of time and ran to party leaders, among who are former National Chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande, for intervention.
According to Salinsile, Oyetola should not have played politics of segregation or blacklisted anyone linked to the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.
He said: “But it is an obvious fact that Governor Oyetola came to destroy our party. We all worked as a united family to install him as governor in spite of all odds. But the moment he got there, he started politics of segregation and divide and rule tactics which he thought he could use to whip everybody back in line; particularly, he was against anything Aregbesola.
“How on earth can you be a Chief of Staff to a sitting governor for good eight years and pretended to him to be what you were not? I have never met that kind of person in my life and I am not a young man.
“He was not yet sworn in when he started the segregation, politics of hatred. Anybody that have anything to do with the immediate past governor of the state, Aregbesola; automatically, you become one of the members in his black book.”
“How can the leader of a house behave that way and you think that house will be peaceful? We said it severally without mincing words so that those who have ears would hear. We went to our leaders starting with Baba Akande to the national chairman of the APC. Asiwaju sent one Alhaji Masari from Katsina state to us; he was the place holder for the APC presidential candidate.
“He said our resolutions should be written down that he would come back the following day to collect it, saying Asiwaju gave him that assignment. Up till today, we have not seen him. He never came back.”
Speaking with OSUN DEFENDER, the Chairman of The Osun Progressives (TOP), Rev. Lowo Adebiyi, said: “You are aware that we have an unsettled internal crisis till the election day. Secondly, the mobilization for the election was not enough.
“There are a lot of issues that the state government is battling with -civil servants’ issues, the issue of backlog of allowances and things like that; even the economic situation of our country, the unemployment rate – All of these affected our party, but the main thrust is that we are not united as a party.
“What happened is very unfortunate, but this affords us a lesson to learn. We are now going to the drawing board and then restrategise for 2023. We believe that before the 2023 elections, we would have had a strong and united APC in Osun State.”
Adebiyi debunked insinuations that the caucus loyal to Aregbesola did not vote for the APC, insisting that TOP mobilised members for the election.
In his comment, the factional Publicity Secretary of the APC in the state, Comrade Abiodun Agboola, also attributed the APC loss in the governorship poll to the internal wrangling within the party.
Agboola said, “The election has come and gone and winner has emerged. No organisation can go into an election with division without suffering a humiliating defeat the progressives suffered in Osun on Saturday.
“Part of our problem is the internal wrangling and we clamoured that the party should intervene to resolve the crisis before the election. What led to the internal wrangling is exclusion and when you exclude some people from participating, that is the kind of result you will get.
“I hope the party will learn from this and set things straight because we are still going for the presidential election in 2023 and that is some few months away.”
