… as party divides over 2019
A head of the 2019 general elections, the Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress is now engulfed in a crisis, which may spell doom for the ruling party at next year’s polls.
The crisis, which had been downplayed in the past, recently came into the open, and is now being fuelled by the no-love-lost relationship between the Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, and the Minister of Communication, Alhaji Adebayo Shittu.
Shittu, who hails from Saki in the Oke Ogun area of Oyo State, is currently nursing the ambition of succeeding Ajimobi as the next occupant of the Agodi Government House. But the incumbent governor, according to sources, believes that the minister is only day-dreaming.
Shittu is, however, said to have the belief that his closeness to President Muhammadu Buhari, which led to his emergence as a minister, will also see him through in realising his ambition to be the next governor of the state.
The two feuding leaders of the party, according to sources, no longer see eye-to-eye and they have both been making frantic moves to polarise members of the state executive committee and the party members.
Most people from Oke Ogun, an area with a vast landmass making up Oyo North, are said to be backing Shittu in his ambition to be governor in 2019, since nobody from the area has occupied the Agodi Government House since the creation of the state.
But in order to ensure that his alleged sidelining of Shittu did not affect the electoral fortunes of the APC in Oyo State, Ajimobi recently secured the entry of a former governor of the state, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, and a former Senate Leader, Senator Teslim Folarin, into the APC.
The two politicians and their numerous supporters were received into the APC by its national leadership at a public rally in Ibadan, recently.
But the simmering crisis blew into the open recently, when Shittu did the official commissioning of the South West Zonal office of the Muhammadu Buhari Osinbajo Campaign group, a support group for Buhari’s second term being financed by Shittu.
Ajimobi was absent, though his picture was on the pamphlets distributed at the event. He also ensured that the party leaders in the state did not attend the event by organising another party event for the same day, which he personally anchored and monitored the APC leaders in attendance.
Delivering his goodwill message at Shittu’s event, a former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, bemoaned the absence of the governor, state officials and the party leaders at the event, urging the national leadership of the party to find a way to resolve the disagreement between Governor Ajimobi and Shittu in order to save the party in the state.
Kalu, who sat on the high table at the event with former Senate President Ken Nnamani, also vowed to see Ajimobi and beg him to resolve his differences with the
minister.
It is not clear how far Kalu has gone with his reconciliation efforts.
Sources, however, informed our correspondent that Ajimobi had vowed that any other person, except Shittu, might succeed him as Oyo governor.
Already, the minister has also sent a petition against Ajimobi to President Muhammadu Buhari and copied the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, and the National leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, accusing the governor of nepotism, arrogance and causing division in the party.
He said the governor was miffed by his acceptance of a chieftaincy title from the Olubadan and his ambition to be governor in
2019.
In his reaction, the state APC Publicity Secretary, Mr. Wole Sadare, said the situation was normal as “we are approaching the election year.”
He said the party executive read in the media like other Nigerians that the minister had even sent a petition against Governor Ajimobi to the National Executive Committee of the party, saying the issue had gone beyond the state executive.
He said he believed the party’s NEC would resolve the matter at the appropriate
time.
Sadare, however, maintained that, as far as the state executive was concerned, the governor remained the leader of the party in the state while the minister was just a member.
Meanwhile, Kalu, while at Ibadan, had urged the leadership of the APC to intervene in the lingering crisis between the governor and the minister.
Kalu, on the occasion, said, “Everybody in this hall will agree with us that there is a break in communication between our governor and the minister. We don’t want that to continue. If anybody inside this house today says it is good for these two elephants to continue quarrelling, I and my senior brother, (Ken) Nnamani, would disagree on that. We have decided to take the case upon ourselves and see that it is resolved. We call on the president, vice-president and national leaders of our party to
intervene
“When two giants are fighting, the grass suffers. The most important thing is that we must say the truth.”
During the presidential campaign launch Shittu undertook on behalf of Buhari, however, Ajimobi was said to be present at the Government House, as he deliberately chose not to attend
the event.
“It’s not because he does not second Buhari for second term but because he does not want to hobnob with Shittu,”an Ajimobi loyalist, who craved anonymity,
said.
