A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged that the Osun State chapter of the party is plotting to suspend Nigeria’s immediate past Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola.
According to Abosede Oluwaseun, a former factional APC youth leader, former governor of Osun State, Gboyega Oyetola, and five of his loyalists are among those scheming to have Aregbesola suspended from the party.
Oluwaseun hinted that the politicians involved are a Senator and former Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly who lost their re-election bid.
He added that others involved in the grand plot include a young former commissioner for Works and Transport and a former commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs.
“We have it on high authority that the Ilesa Ward 8 executives of the APC, which is Aregbesola’s ward, were manipulated yesterday (Wednesday) to sign a blank sheet of paper on the false pretence that the APC state leadership wanted to get their commitment to the progress of the party.
“We are also reliably informed that a huge amount of money was given to the ward executives a few hours ago by an emissary sent by Oyetola and other conspirators.
“We note that having failed in the various attempts to blackmail Aregbesola, Oyetola and others resorted to unjustly suspending Aregbesola to stall the reconciliation between him and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” the APC chieftain noted.
Oluwaseun, however, warned that any attempt to suspend Aregbesola would backfire.
Aregbesola, Others Chose To Be Enemies Of APC In Osun
However, the Osun APC has swiftly responded to the allegation, dismissing the viral report that it is planning to suspend Aregbesola over his alleged anti-party activities.
In a statement made available to newsmen in Osogbo on Friday, the Chairman of the APC in Osun, Tajudeen Lawal, said the former Minister and other members turned themselves into enemies of APC in Osun.
According to Lawal, the said alleged plans by some people to suspend Aregbesola do not add up and are grossly illogical, which could only be taken hook, line and sinker by a demented person.
Lawal said the question that should be begging answered by right-thinking members of society is if the said former minister is still genuinely qualified to be called a member of the APC in Osun State and elsewhere in Nigeria, having expressly fulfilled all the conditions to tag him as having technically left the party for many years.
“It is no longer news that Aregbesola and his co-travellers through The Osun Progressives, TOP have been consistently working against the interest of the APC and its candidates in Osun State.
“It is on record that Aregbesola and the members of his TOP, of which he was a patron, turned themselves into opposition within the Osun APC where they were hurling insults and criticising Oyetola’s government at their every Thursday meetings at the Oranmiyan House, which is the campaign office of Aregbesola in Osogbo.
“Apart from the fact that Aregbesola never voted during the last presidential election, which was won by President Tinubu, National Assembly and governorship elections, he never voted or campaigned for any APC candidates during the series of the elections that were held in the state last year and this year respectively,” Daily Post quoted the Lawal saying.
He added that Aregbesola and his loyalists have been hobnobbing with Senator Ademola Adeleke, the governor under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP platform, to the detriment of all the APC candidates.
