Olakiitan Victor in Ado-Ekiti
The visit of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State to Ekiti State has drawn the ire of the members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, with the party saying such a visit was a slight on the party and contempt for the party’s leadership in the state.
Aregbesola was in Ado-Ekiti at the weekend on the invitation of Governor Ayodele Fayose for the 20th anniversary of Ekiti State.
At a public forum broadcast live on the state media, Aregbesola described Fayose as “omoluabi” and a hardworking governor who had turned around the fortunes of his state in terms of infrastructure.
Scolding the visit in a statement by the Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the party stressed that Aregbesola’s visit signposted the contempt in which the party and its leaders were held by the Osun governor after Fayose had caused severe pains in the lives of APC members, some of whom had been languishing in jail for about two years for the offences they did not commit.
“Aregbesola’s visit to Fayose praising him as ‘omoluabi’ and for the achievements by APC-led government is not only embarrassing but also awful in the face of sustained attacks on APC members, some of whom are still languishing in jail for about two years over trumped-up charges by Fayose.
“It is shocking that Aregbesola as a governor and one of the leading lights in APC in the South-west and indeed the nation would be visiting Ekiti State without putting the leaders into confidence, more so on a visit to a man who once wished the President dead and had done unbelievable things both in Nigeria and abroad to bring Buhari’s government down.
“Worse still, Aregbesola was praising the man who will stop at nothing to bring APC-led federal government down after several years of failed attempts by the progressives to win the presidency of Nigeria.”
Olatunbosun also frowned at alleged misappropriation of APC’s authority with the Osun governor promising realignments of forces with Fayose “sooner than later,” saying such “unbridled” trading off of APC in Ekiti State to Fayose would never stand in the face of the governor’s molestation of APC members over the years.
Warning that the state leaders would resist any attempt to draft the governor into any realignment with APC in the state and foist him on the party, Olatunbosun noted that Fayose had done enough damage to the integrity of Ekiti people, saying that now was the time for the real “omoluabi” in Ekiti to join forces to rebuild the ruins into which Fayose’s administration had plunged the state.
