Aregbesola, Tinubu draw the battle line as APC in Osun State chooses its governorship flagbearer this Saturday.
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The secret feud between two erstwhile friends and political associates, Rauf Aregbesola and Bola Tinubu, is coming to the open.
Rauf Aregbesola is a former governor of Osun State and the current Interior minister. He says he would stop at nothing to stop the second term aspiration of his successor, Gboyega Oyetola.
Oyetola, the nephew of Tinubu, was elected governor of Osun State in 2018 and is due for re-election this year. The All Progressives Congress (APC) primary for the election holds this Saturday.
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But Aregbesola says Oyetola won’t be given a second term just the way former Lagos Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode was denied re-election.
According to the ex-Osun governor, Tinubu caused the rejection of former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s attempt to get reelected.
“That was how it was sometime in Lagos when a governor rejected by the party wanted to contest a second term. The party refused. It is the same today, and familiarity will not stop that from happening,” Aregbesola was quoted by the Peoples Gazette as telling a group of party faithful in Ijebu-Jesha ahead of the party’s primaries slated for Saturday.
Oyetola enjoys the support of Tinubu but faces rejection from Aregbesola whose faction of APC in Osun State is formidable.
The faction stormed Osogbo, the state capital in a convoy to demonstrate their numerical strength yesterday.
But Osun State commissioner for information and civic orientation, Funke Egbemode, described the convoy of Aregbesola as an invasion of Osogbo, to forcibly continue “a long lost influence.”
“We have credible reports that some misguided cowards have invaded Osogbo, the Osun state capital, with armed thugs to foment trouble. These miscreants and their kingpin started shooting as they raced through the town. Their interest is simply to attempt to thwart the peace of the state and create fear in the minds of the good people of Osun counting on a long-lost influence.”
Oyetola’s government had warned that there “are no sacred cows” and “no one is above the law here regardless of their past glories or future aspirations.”
Egbemode warned that security agencies had been “well briefed about the activities of these mischief-makers, who have set themselves on a collision course with the law.”
