By Sikiru Obarayese
With few days to the September 22 governorship election in the State of Osun, there is still likelihood of shake up across political lines in the state.
The shake up might follow the defection of the former Speaker of Osun House of Assembly and a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant, Honourable Adejare Bello.
It was gathered that leaders and candidates of different political parties are still on the move making entreaties to one another across political lines for the possibility of alignment and realignment.
Bello has during the week resigned his membership of PDP and defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), as rumours are ripe that some other bigwigs might join the ruling party before the election.
Bello is from Ede, the hometown of the governorship candidate of the PDP, Senator Ademola Adeleke.
Confirming his defection to APC in a video, he said he had joined the ruling party to team up with its governorship candidate, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola.
According to him, candidates and leaders of various political parties have approached him for alignment, but he has decided to join APC.
He said this is because in reality, APC and PDP are the major political parties existing in Nigeria as of today.
According to him, some of those that have approached him for alignment are the candidates of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), Alhaji Moshood Adeoti; Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore; African Democratic Congress (ADC) leader, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola and the APC candidate, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola among others.
In his letter of resignation from PDP, Bello who was the running mate of Senator Omisore, the then candidate of PDP in 2014 governorship election, said he decided to resign from the opposition party because ‘some elements’ had hijacked it.
His resignation letter read, “I hereby write to officially resign my membership of the Peoples Democratic Party at all levels of the party.
“I use this medium to appreciate the party and the leadership for several opportunities given to me to serve the party and the people of Osun State
“Going forward, therefore, the recent events, especially within the Osun chapter of the party which to me, are inimical, contrary and a total shift from the intendments of the founding fathers of the party, which was built on justice, fairness and service, had caused me to reconsider my membership of the party of which I hereby again resigned.
“It is my sincere belief that some certain elements had hijacked the rudder of the ship of the party and changed its course towards an unknown part of which I am not ready to take”.
Besides, the Alliance for Democracy governorship candidate, Gbenga Akintola gave a hint that there might be more realignments in the days ahead, saying, other parties have been knocking at his doors, just as he added that what is important for him is to ensure that Osun people elect the right person for the job.
“I must say that there are consultations already going on. If it happens to be me, I will be very happy to do that because the plans I have for them are genuine, achievable and realistic which will make our state the envy of other states in not a long distant future.
“If we have people of like minds, people that have genuine interest for the development of our state and see that they have superior agenda to mine, of course I will give room for that, but I must have asked the right questions on what they have done to eliminate the issues the people are confronted with”, Akintola hinted.
