Osun 2018: PDP Plots Hate Campaign Against Aregbesola, APC

To launch itself back into the heart of the people of the State of Osun ahead of the 2018 governorship election, some characters in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were alleged to have decided to launch hate campaign against Governor Rauf Aregbesola and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

A source within the PDP in one of the faction said the party has concluded arrangement to whip up community sentiments against Aregbesola and his party with a view to getting towns and cities to reject them in 2018 at a meeting held with leadership of the newly inaugurated Caretaker Committee.

PDP sources who spoke with OSUN DEFENDER on condition of anonymity confessed that the newly elected Senator Ademola Adeleke and two wealthy Nigerians in Lagos have been contacted to bankroll the project.

According to the PDP sources, the PDP has also set up a committee to work on aggrieved members of the APC, particularly the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Lasun Yusuff and Alhaji Fatai Diekola with a plan to get them to continue undermining the leaders of the APC and causing crisis.

The PDP sources disclosed that the party could not win election in the state with fair campaign, hence it has resolve to recruit people and engaged them to smear Aregbesola’s image and discredit his achievements in the state.

The hate campaign is said to be centred on ongoing projects, religious and community crisis, among others.

According to the PDP sources at the meeting, the PDP concluded to set discontent for the APC by selling messages of hate, peculiar to a locality, to the people with a view to getting members of the public in such locations to hate Governor Rauf Aregbesola and the APC.

Specifically, the hateful messages are to be designed to stress a problem in a locality is meant to whip up community sentiment against Aregbesola and the APC in towns and cities.

For instance, Governor Aregbesola is to be held responsible and made the scapegoat of any wrong in any town or city using uncompleted projects in such place as a deliberate wish of the governor and the APC.

According to the sources, the PDP is working seriously to ensure that Aregbesola and the APC lose the strong base it has in Osogbo, the state capital by watering down his love in the heart of Osogbo residents.

To achieve that, the PDP allegedly resolved to sell a story that Osogbo is being marginalised in the Aregbesola’s administration with too little number of appointments and that the governor is victimising prominent Osogbo indigenes who are members and supporters of the APC.

The PDP also resolved to discredit the Aregbesola’s achievement in Osogbo by watering down their essence and dissuading indigenes of the city from commending him on the ground that Osogbo deserved more infrastructural development than what it is on ground, compared to the votes given to the governor.

The medium learnt that the PDP has been recruiting people to carry out the hatchet job.

For Iwo Federal constituency, the PDP sources disclosed that the dilapidated Osogbo/Iwo road was chosen to launch the hate campaign against Aregbesola and the party.

The story to tell the people of the Federal Constituency, according to the sources, was that Aregbesola deliberately refused to reconstruct the road as a mark of lack of concern for the plight of the people of Iwoland.

It was also gathered that the PDP members resolved to play devil’s advocate by telling the people of Iwoland that Aregbesola did not treat the Secretary of the State Government, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti well and attempted to frustrate him out of office.

“They wanted to paint a picture that Aregbesola does not like Iwoland and that is why the SSG is being marginalised by his administration”, said the sources.

The sources also said that the PDP allegedly concluded on embarking on campaign of calumny with the ongoing Gbongan/Osogbo road dualisation which has gone on for more than two years which was initially earmarked for it.

“At the meeting, the party concluded to poison the mind of the people of Gbongan, Ode-Omu and other communities that the Gbongan/Osogbo road is serving. The people engaged for the job will be telling the people that Aregbesola has bastardised the economy of the area with the non-completion of the road”, the source disclosed.

It was gathered that the PDP has begun move to source for fund to implement these strategies.

Senator Ademola Adeleke, who is representing Osun West Senatorial District at the Senate, two other people in Lagos and one of the recently inaugurated caretaker committee members have been penciled down as financiers of the project.