The Youth Wing of All Progressives Congress in Osun State has declared that the Interior Minister, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, and his supporters, were no longer in the party and may be working to make APC lose future elections in the state.
Addressing newsmen at the party’s state secretariat in Osogbo on Wednesday, the state APC Youth Leader, Goke Akinwemimo, said Aregbesola sponsored the Tuesday protest to blackmail the leadership of APC in Osun.
According to him, the minister openly sponsored splinter groups to reduce the winning chances of APC in the just concluded Osun governorship election, adding that Aregbesola also openly declared support for the opposition party.
He however expressed confidence in the leadership of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola and the party chairman, Prince Adegboyega Famodun, and then demanded that Aregbesola should be cautioned not to destroy the party.
He said, “Aregbesola, under the auspices of The Osun Progressives (TOP) embarked on what can be best described as public charade and disgrace in Osogbo, capital Osun State to blackmail the state leadership of our party, All Progressive Congress.
“We are saying these to alert the national leadership of our dear party that Aregbesola and his allies are no more with APC. Apart from the fact that their previous actions have shown that they are working for opposition, they are equally determined to ensure that we lose other future elections including the presidential election. They are out to spell doom for our party. But we are prepared to resist them and they will not succeed.
“For instance, the charade called protest yesterday was with the support of opposition PDP to prepare ground for their unholy alliance ahead of the future election by taking over Osun APC in Osun completely and conveniently hand it over to PDP to ensure the defeat of our presidential vandidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as earlier boasted by Aregbesola and his allies.”
But when responding, the Publicity Secretary of the Aregbesola-backed APC state executive, Abiodun Agboola, dismissed the allegations, saying Tinubu was the presidential candidate of the group with a promise that its members would work for the victory of the ex Lagos state governor in 2023 poll.
Agboola also said members of the group should not be blamed for the APC abysmal outing at the governorship poll, alleging that all efforts to prevent the impending defeat were frustrated by the leadership of APC in the state.
He also dismissed allegations that TOP and Aregbesola sponsored the Tuesday protest and insisted that the ex-governor won his local government for APC at the governorship poll, while the state chairman of the party and some other aides of the governor lost their local governments to PDP.
“Just like I said the last time, the allegations are false and baseless and I honestly challenge them to come out with evidence of what they are saying.
“Firstly, we are loyal party members and we already have our presidential candidate who is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of which we are committed to his victory come next year.
“However, just like we have been saying in TOP, it is well known to the public that we have problem in the state chapter of the party in Osun state and the problem we have on so many occasions, we TOP members came out to expose how the leadership of the party led by Prince Famodun has been running APC but nothing was done until they made us lose the election,” Agboola concluded.