…as Gov’s Lagos godson fetes community, assists 100 widows
Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, at the weekend, placated aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos State, especially those who had sought to become council chairmen last July, but were forced to step down for preferred candidates.
He urged the politicians not to defect ahead of 2019 as being widely speculated, saying, “APC is a turn-by-turn party, where elections, appointments and placements will go round.
“For as long as you are a steadfast party member, you can never lose out, as we cherish commitment and dedication in APC and every member is under watch for appropriate rewards at due time.”
Aregbesola gave the admonition in Ojokoro, a Lagos community at a Christmas party thrown for the locals by Change Agent, a socio-political group founded by an APC chieftain, Hon. Dipo Okeyomi, a.k.a. Carry Go, who is Aregbesola’s longstanding political godson.
Aregbesola, who was represented on the occasion by his Commissioner for Regional Integration in the South West, Hon. Bola Ilori, applauded Okeyomi’s endurance in remaining a loyal party member, despite having lost out at the final stage for three consecutive times, in his attempt to become the chairman of Ojokoro Local Council Development Area.
He said, “His type is rare among today’s politicians. For a man to have come close to becoming the council chairman in three attempts, to always smile and accept his fate, continuing in his good works of spending personal resources to build and expand the party, is amazing.
“If it were another politician, he would have jumped out of the party because of his personal ambition; but no, Okeyomi chose to beautify modern Nigerian politics by remaining in one political party for ideological, and not pecuniary reason.”
In his response, Okeyomi commended both the Osun governor and National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, saying, “They did not know that I quietly imbibed a lot from their political sagacity and discipline, when Asiwaju was Lagos governor and Aregbesola his Commissioner for Works.”
He also remarked that the current Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, ‘graduated’ from the Asiwaju school of thought, “before he is today a resounding success in Lagos State.”
Okeyomi similarly recalled how some persons mounted pressure on him to dump the APC when he failed to secure the party’s chairmanship ticket for a third record time spanning over a decade, but that he resisted the temptation.
“My approach is that, if on the platform of this party, I can have the freedom as I have today, to affect people’s lives positively and gain knowledge from the party’s array of think-tanks, I’m contented; as I believe that it is God that elects through the people and also appoints through the people’s delegates,” he said.
At the ceremony, also attended by a member of the House of Representatives, representing Ifako/Ijaiye Lagos constituency, Hon. Nurudeen Akinwumi, Okeyomi disbursed a sum of N2 million to 100 widows, for Christmas celebration.
The politician, a mechanised farmer and security expert, also doled out work tools to no fewer than 50 artisans in the
locality.
