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On Monday, Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola blasted those he once trusted politically, accusing them of betrayal.
The former governor of Osun State from 2010 to 2018 declared that enough is enough for the politics of godfatherism and enthronement by treacherous leaders who equated themselves to the status of god.
The 64-year-old minister said he trusted the All Progressives Congress National Leader, Bola Tinubu, but the ex-governor of Lagos State repaid him with betrayal.
Aregbesola accused Tinubu, a former APC interim chairman and ex-governor of Osun State, Bisi Akande, of foisting the current governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola, on the people, against popular will.
Aregbesola, who leads an APC faction in the state and who had been engaged in a feud with his successor, Oyetola, accused the incumbent governor of not consolidating on his eight-year achievements.
Aregbesola, therefore, called on the party members in Osun to support a former Secretary to the State Government, Moshood Adeoti, in Saturday’s governorship primary.
He also said just as the ex-governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, was rejected by APC members in 2019 for working against the laid down rules, Oyetola would be thrown out of office after just a term.
The minister, who declared that the current administration in the state had deviated from the true tenets of the APC, also accused those at the helms of affairs of jettisoning true democracy and the principles that the party and its heroes stand for.
The former governor spoke in the Ijebu Jesa area of the state while addressing members of the APC ahead of Saturday’s governorship primary election.
The aspirants warming up for the party primary include the incumbent governor, Oyetola; the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yusuff Lasun; and former Secretary of the State Government, Adeoti, who recently returned to the ruling APC in June 2020 from the Action Democratic Party.
Aregbesola and Tinubu had been decade-long political associates. The former was Director of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organisation, which drove the electoral victory of Bola Tinubu in 1999 and also ensured Tinubu’s return to office in 2003. Aregbesola was also Commissioner of Works and Infrastructure while Tinubu was Lagos governor.
Many keen observers have been watching Tinubu and Aregbesola’s deteriorating relationship with trepidation.The minister was not seen visiting Tinubu in London when he was hospitalised for over three months for knee surgery and when over 100 notable politicians turned the APC leader’s London home into a Mecca of sorts in 2021. Also, Aregbesola has not been seen associating himself with the 2023 presidential ambitions of Tinubu.
Aregbesola has been having a running tussle with Oyetola over what he termed poor leadership and over what appeared to be a struggle for control of the APC organs in Osun State.
The Governor Mai Mala Buni’s APC caretaker committee recently inaugurated Oyetola’s man, Gboyega Famoodun, as the recognised party chairman in Osun and disregarded Aregbesola’s faction.
Aregbesola’s faction had pursued the legal option to seek recognition as the authentic APC group in the state, but the High Court of Osun State sitting at Ikire, presided over by Justice Sikiru Oke, recently struck out a suit instituted by the group, The Osun Progressives, (a group within the APC) in the state.
A similar suit by Aregbesola’s group in respect of the Ward Congress/Executives was struck out by the Federal High Court also in February 2022, for lack of jurisdiction.
Addressing APC members loyal to his faction on Monday in Ijebu Jesa, Osun, the minister said no man can terrify him, insisting that Oyetola won’t be reelected for a second term in office.
Aregbesola said, “Only God can terrify us, not man. Go and tell them, wherever they are, that we own this party. We own this AFENIFERE group. We own this people-loving group started by our patriarchs, Obafemi Awolowo and Bola Ige. This was Elder Akande’s group before he temporarily left us. This is our party. Stop calling yourself a factional group; you are not a faction; you are the authentic APC.”
He thereafter launched a political song to drive home his point; bye-bye to Jagba-Jagba, rede rede (nonsense).
Continuing, the former governor said, “We came back home to reposition our party to where it was meant to be because we followed the lead of our leader, who we thought was a noble and reliable fellow. We followed him (Tinubu) dutifully, with all our sense of loyalty. Some people even thought that we were no longer Muslims because of how we cooperated with him. We dealt with him without treachery, but we never knew he planned evil for us. We elevated him above his station, and he turned himself into a god over us, despite the fact that we had sworn to mock anyone who compared himself to God.God has no competitor; he is enough to be God. “
We built this party on perseverance as well as sweat and blood. We lost a lot of people in this struggle, but eventually, we came into government on November 27, 2010. We were in government for eight years and governed according to the measure of God’s grace. Everybody in Osun enjoyed our tenure. “
Aregbesola subsequently recounted how Tinubu imposed Oyetola as his successor in Osun in 2018.
When he (Tinubu) handed over the current governor to me around July of 2018, he (Tinubu) declared that he (Oyetola) would succeed me and continue my good works. That was what he told me. The minister protested. The minister protested. “He knows he has not done so if he is listening now and he has failed to call my successor to order,” the minister protested.
Aregbesola also noted that if Tinubu and other APC members in Lagos had rejected Ambode, claiming he had derailed from the original master plan, there was nothing wrong with dethroning Oyetola in Osun because he had derailed from the master plan too.
As it was in Lagos at the time, the governor was derailed and the party members unseated him using the ballot boxes. As it was in Lagos yesterday, it will be the same in Osun today. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander,” he said.
