Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo Thursday admonished opposition political parties in the South-west to stop dreaming about winning any of the remaining two states in the region.
Speaking in Oyo, Oyo State, in company with the state Governor Adabayo Alao-Akala, at the inauguration of the renovated Atiba Hall as well as kick start Alao-Akala’s re-election campaign, Obasanjo admonished the supporters of the ruling party that none of the South-west states should be allowed to slip back into the opposition party. “We have stayed too long in the opposition; outside the mainstream.
Are we cursed? If we are there, we will definitely know how they share it so that they don’t short-change us,” Obasanjo told the mammoth
crowd. He warned the people of the state to vote massively for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at all levels during the April
elections and shun those who he accused of being experts in pulling down good people.
Rather than allowing sentiments to becloud their sense of judgment, the former leader asked the people to judge politicians by their
performances, pointing out that he would not have attended the rally if Alao-Akala had not performed well in office.
“There has been steady progress in Oyo State since Akala came on board. He has also told me that we have not seen anything yet and that more are coming. You must support him because I know he is a man of his words,” he added.
Earlier, the governor said the renovation of the ancient hall by his administration was part of efforts to ensure that the cultural
legacies of the region were not allowed to die. He stated that his previous political antecedents coupled with his four-year administration had made him to be more experienced than all his opponents in the forthcoming elections.
He said: “I challenge any of my opponents who have the kind of experience I have to come out. You can’t read the kind of experience I
have in any textbook, you acquire it. I was a local government chairman; I was a deputy governor and now I am a governor.
“I have got enough experience to rule this state. No past governor has done what I have done in office.
“Everywhere we go from today, there are projects to commission. From Ibadan to Oyo, Ibarapa, Oke-Ogun and Ogbomoso, people are feeling our impact.”
He said none of the governorship candidates was capable of unseating him. On the neighbouring states where PDP governors had been sacked, Alao-Akala described the sitting governors as judiciary governors. “Oyo is the heart of the South-west, they cannot take it from us,” he boasted.
For the umpteenth time, the governor denied speculation that he was feeding school pupils with fetish food saying, “If I was fed with such
fetish food when I was young, would I have become a governor?”