A former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Osun State, Mr. Adelani Baderinwa, has described those saying that the immediate-past Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, is no longer a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as hollow and illogical thinkers. In a post on his Facebook page on Friday, Baderinwa described those promoting such a narrative are charlatans who have no worthy socio-political credentials in the history of the progressive fold in the state.
HIS POSITION
When some characters speak, you wonder where their brain is located. Typical of such is this irresponsible talk by this charlatan, whose only credential in sociopolitical management is the four-year malfeasance administration of Mr. Gboyega Oyetola in Osun.
It calls for concern when a dramatis personae in a government that drove the Progressives out of Osogbo Government House is the one grandstanding as chieftain.
You will first of all ask where is this guy is coming from in Nigeria’s politics to be pronouncing judgment on Rauf Aregbesola? How much does he have in terms of understanding what Progressive politics is?
It is clear that ambitionists have driven the quality of what Progressives politics is to the near to zero standard level. Understanding what Chief Obafemi Awolowo said he put together “toiling day and night while my colleagues are carousing with women of easy virtue” cannot be what today’s characters who double deal and engaged in mercantile rather than governance.
Progressives politics have suffered in the hands of political jobbers, flotsam and jetsam without any antecedents whose only focus is the diabolical way to cheat the people. Bayo Adeleke, otherwise called Banik, was one of the PDP political hands who followed Dr Peter Babalola to join the Action Congress of Nigeria ACN in 2011 after Rauf Aregbesola had regained his mandate in November 2010. The rally where Dr Babalola and his boys, including Banik were received into ACN was held at the Technical College playground.
“So, how much of Progressives politics does Banik know between then and now that has empowered him to say that Aregbesola is not a Governor worthy of being said to have been produced by the Progressives political platform? Was Banik not one of the uncouth and ruthless characters in the PDP who master minded the various crude and lethal attacks on Rauf Aregbesola when he was aspiring to be Governor?; and even much more so for as long as the legal struggle lasted?
It is ironic that Banik and his cohort destroyers of the Osun Progressives government tower built by Aregbesola kept alleging anti-party activity. What could be more hollow, illogical, and senseless than this irresponsible talk?
Let Banik and his fellow empty headed co-travellers be reminded of the night of their final rally on July 12, 2022, after the path to Osogbo Stadium became a human desert and the stadium venue of the rally was less than half full. They need to be reminded that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a discerning super politician who read through the day’s events, and had been spoken to, by a few other clear-headed politically minded personalities who had witnessed the lacklustre road show and the rally itself, asked Banik and company if the election would not deserve a more politically critical approach.
Asiwaju was said to have pointedly asked, Can you win this election with what we have seen today? Braggats that Banik and co political neophytes are, they quickly reassured Asiwaju that they were up to the task and the political juggernaut shouldn’t worry himself. Asiwaju left them at that.
Much earlier, Banik and the gang needed to be reminded of several empty bragging sessions they had verbalise at different forums, claiming they were capable of winning the election. The refusal of truce offer, which they openly made, is on record.
A typical point they used to buttress their claim of Aregbesola’s anti-party activity is that he didn’t
campaign or vote for APC. And you wondered if they had their brain under their feet. They forget that they constituted a long list of campaign committee with Aregbesola’s name copiously missing. Thereafter, they went to town to announce that whoever doesn’t have his membership in campaign committee shouldn’t turn up; otherwise, he should live up to the consequence.
This is against the background that some weeks earlier, the Oyetola government sent thugs to waylaid Aregbesola at Orisunmbare market in Osogbo. If you wanted Aregbesola to “dey his dey” and he abided with your, it is shameful for you to hold him responsible for your loss. Mocking you after is a natural reaction to an unthinkable demeaning of his personality by you.
All these were just to say “boju aja ba leewo, enu adiye ko lati ma gbo”
But even the most ridiculous of this attempt to paste undeserved anti-party toga on Aregbesola was the event in the neighbouring Oyo state where APC lost ridiculously, the governorship election. The roles of APC chieftains at various levels remain indelible. The events that followed will be historical. In Oyo state, APC chieftains were not afraid or ashamed to demarket APC candidates.
Till date, nobody has been accused of anti-party. Could there have been two standards of being measurements in determining a wrong in APC?
– Baderinwa, the Secretary of the Omoluabi Progressives, a caucus of the Osun APC, was the Commissioner for Information, Osun State (2017 – 2018).